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THE  EIGHTEEN   NINETIES 


ArnKKV  Beakdsi.icv 

Froifi  till'  l^hotOiirnfili  ly  Frrderick  H.  h'.Tniis 


THE 

EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

A   REVIEW  OF  ART  AND  IDEAS  AT  THE 

CLOSE  OF  THE  NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 

BY 

HOLBROOK   JACKSON 

AUTIIOK  OK   "ROMANCE  AND  llEAUTY,"  ETC 


NEW  YORK 
ALFRED   A.    KNOPF 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  bv  the  Riverside  Press    Limited 
euinburgu 


CMVERSITY  OF  CALIFORi> 
SANTA  BARBARA 


TO 

MAX    BEERBOHM 


Design  by  Aubrey  Beardsley  for  the  Contents  Page  of  The  Savoy,  \o\.  I. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION   . 

CH AFTER 

I.  FIN    DE    SINGLE— 1890-1900 

II.  PERSONALITIES   AND   TENDENCIES 

III.  THE   DECADENCE 

IV.  OSCAR   WILDE  :    THE   LAST   PHASE 
V.  AUBREY   BEARDSLEY 

VI.  THE    NEW    DANDYISM       . 

VII.  THE   INCOMPARABLE   MAX 

VIII.  SHOCKING   AS    A   FINE   ART 

IX.  PURPLE   PATCHES    AND    FINE    PHRASES 

X.  THE    DISCOVERY   OF   THE    CELT   . 

XI.  THE   MINOR   POET 

XII.  FRANCIS   THOMPSON 

Xni.  JOHN   DAVIDSON 

XIV.  ENTER G.B.S.    . 

XV.  THE    HIGHER   DRAMA 

XVI.  THE    NEW    FICTION 
XVII.    RUDYARD    KIPLING 

XVIII.  ART   AND    LIFE    . 

XIX.  THE    REVIVAL    OF    PRINTING 

XX.  BRITISH    IMPRESSIONISTS 

XXI.  IN   BLACK   AND   WHITE 
INDEX    . 


PAOK 

13 

17 
33 
55 
72 
91 
105 
117 
126 
135 
147 
157 
166 
177 
193 
205 
216 
231 
244 
255 
267 
279 
293 


Reproduced  by  kind  permission  of  the  proprietors  of  "  Punch 

Britannia  h.  la  Beardsley 

By  our   "Yellow"   Decadent 

(E.  T.  Reed) 


LIST    OF    PLATES 

Aubrey  Beardsley       .....        Frontispiece 

From  a  Photograph  by  Frederick  H.  Evans 

TO   FACR    PAGE 

Cover  Design  of  The   Yellow  Booh,  Volume  I  .  .18 

By  Aubrey  Beardsley 

Cover   Design   of  The   Saturdaii   Renew,  Christmas  Supple- 
ment (1896)         ......  .'54 

By   IVilliam  Rolhenstein 

Cover  Design  of  The  Savojj,   Volume   I         .  .  .38 

By  Aubrey  Beardsley 

Oscar  Wilde  (1895)  ......  72 

Aubrey  Beardsley       ......         92 

By  Max  Beerbohm 

The  Rape  of  the  Lock  .....         98 

By  Aubrey  Beardsley 

Page  Decoration  from  the  Morte  d' Arthur  .  .  .100 

By  Aiibrey  Beardsley 

Tail-piece  from  Salome  .....        104 

By  Aubrey  Beardsley 

"  Mr  VV.   B.   Yeats   introducing   Mr   George    Moore   to   the 

Queen  of  the  Fairies"  .  .  .  .120 

By  Max  Beerbohm 

A.  E.   Housman  .  .  .  .  .164 

From  a  Drawing  by   William  Rolhenstein 

Francis  Thompson  (Life  Mask,  1905)  .  .  .166 

Rudyard  Kipling        ......        232 

By   IVilliam  Nicholson 

A  Garland  for  May   Day   1895  .  .  .  .        244 

By    Walter  Crane 


10  LIST    OF   PLATES 

TO   PACK    PAOI 

Page  Decoration  from  ^he  Kelmscott  Coleridge       .  .       258 

By   IVilliani  Morris 

Page  Decoration  from  John  (Jray's  Spiritual  Poems  .       262 

By  Charles  Ricketts 

Frontispiece  and  Title-Page  of  The  House  of  Joy  .        266 

By  Laurence  Housman 

The  Peacock  Fan      .  .  .  .  .  .268 

By  Charles  Cotider 

The  Arrival  of  Prince  Charming      ....       274 

By  Charles  Conder 

A  Voluptuary  .  .  .  .  .  .280 

By  L.   Raven  Hill 

Illustration  from  The  Faerie  Queene  ....       282 
By   IValter  Crane 

Phil   May        .......        286 

By  Spy 

A  Lecture  in  Store  ......       288 

By  Phil  May 

The  Banks  of  the  Styx         .  .  .  .  .290 

By  S.   H.   Sivie 


PREFACE 

This  new  edition  of  "  The  Eighteen  Nineties  "  has  been 
revised  and  corrected.  Here  and  there  notes  and  sentences 
have  been  added  for  purposes  of  clarity.  In  all  other  re- 
spects it  resembles  the  1913  edition.  Through  the  courtesy 
of  the  Proprietors  of  "  Punch  "  it  has  been  possible  to  add 
to  the  illustrations  Mr  E.  T.   Reed's  admirable  caricature, 

''Britannia  d  la  Beardsley." 

H.  J. 

London,   1922 


II 


INTRODUCTION 

There  is  little  to  say  by  way  of  introduction  to  this  study, 
as  the  title,  I  imagine,  explains  the  subject,  with  the  possible 
exception  that  it  does  not,  for  reasons  of  space,  indicate  that 
I  have  reviewed  only  certain  tendencies  in  art  and  ideas  in 
this  country.  I  have  had,  of  course,  to  refer,  incidentally, 
to  the  work  of  foreign  writers  and  painters,  but  only  as  part 
of  the  process  of  tracing  origins  and  lines  of  development. 
This  is  said  not  as  excuse  but  in  explanation  of  omissions 
which  might  otherwise  be  questioned.  The  movement  which 
I  have  described  in  the  British  Islands  was,  to  be  sure,  but 
one  phase  of  a  literary  and  artistic  awakening  which  had 
its  counterparts  in  many  countries,  particularly  in  France 
and  Germany,  and  to  some  extent  in  Italy  and  Russia.  Mr 
Arthur  Symons,  in  the  Symbolist  Movement  in  Literature, 
has  given  us  a  valuable  interpretation  of  one  of  its  important 
phases  in  France,  and  Mr  W.  G.  Blaikie  Murdoch,  in  The 
Renaissance  of  the  Nineties,  has  dealt  eloquently,  but  all  too 
briefly,  with  certain  manifestations  of  the  awakening  in  our 
own  country,  whilst  Mr  J.  M.  Kennedy  in  English  Literature, 
1880-1905,  has  made  the  literary  history  of  the  quarter 
century  he  reviews  the  basis  of  an  argument  in  defence  of 
the  classical  as  against  the  romantic  idea.  My  intention  has 
been  to  co-ordinate  the  various  movements  of  the  period, 
and  avoiding  sectional  or  specialised  argument,  to  interpret 
them  not  only  in  relation  to  one  another,  but  in  relation  to 
their  foreign  influences  and  the  main  trend  oi'  our  national 
art  and  life.  Thus  my  aim  may  be  described  as  interpreta- 
tive rather  than  critical,  although  criticism  is  not  easily 
avoided  by  one  who  engages  to  select  examples  and  instances 
from  a  great  body  of  work. 

No  excuse  need  be  made  by  me  for  confining  my  review 
to  so  limited  a  period  as  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 

13 


14  INTRODUCTION 

century,  for  once  having  decided  to  write  about  the  art  and 
ideas  of  the  closing  years  of  that  century,  the  final  ten  years 
insisted  upon  definite  recognition  by  the  coincidence  of 
position  in  time  and  appropriate  happenings  in  literature, 
painting,  and  other  arts  and  crafts.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  have  not  confined  myself  strictly  to  a  single  decade, 
for  it  will  be  seen  that  my  Nineties  trespass  upon  the  adjoin- 
ing territory  of  the  Eighties  and  the  Nineteen  Hundreds, 
and,  to  protect  myself  as  far  as  possible  against  extraneous 
argument,  I  have  adopted  in  the  initial  chapter  the  dates 
"  1890-1900  "  as  a  kind  of  symbol  for  the  period.  The  com- 
promise is  defensible,  as  I  have  not  wilfully  singled  out  a 
decade  for  review  ;  that  decade  had  singled  itself  out,  the 
Eighteen  Nineties  having  already  become  a  distinctive  epoch 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  concern  themselves  with  art  and 
ideas. 

Anybody  who  studies  the  moods  and  thoughts  of  the 
Eighteen  Nineties  cannot  fail  to  observe  their  central  char- 
acteristic in  a  widespread  concern  for  the  correct— that  is, 
the  most  effective,  the  most  powerful,  the  most  righteous — 
mode  of  living.  For  myself,  however,  the  awakening  of  the 
Nineties  does  not  appear  to  be  the  realisation  of  a  purpose, 
but  the  realisation  of  a  possibility.  Life  aroused  curiosity. 
People  became  enthusiastic  about  the  way  it  should  be  used. 
And  in  proof  of  sincerity  there  were  opinionated  battles — 
most  of  them  inconclusive.  But  they  were  not  wasteful  on 
that  account,  for  the  very  circumstance  of  idea  pitting  itself 
against  idea,  vision  against  vision,  mood  against  mood, 
and,  indeed,  wliim  against  whim,  cleared  the  way  for  more 
definite  action  when  the  time  ripened.  It  was  an  epoch  of 
experiment,  with  some  achievement  and  some  remorse.  The 
former  is  to  be  seen  in  certain  lasting  works  of  art  and  in 
the  acceptance  of  new,  and  sometimes  revolutionary,  social 
ideas  ;  the  latter  in  the  repentant  attitude  of  so  many  poets 
and  other  artists  of  the  time  who,  after  tasting  more  life  than 
was  good  for  them,  reluctantly  sought  peace  in  an  escape 
from  material  concerns.  The  decade  began  with  a  dash  for 
life  and  ended  with  a  retreat — but  not  defeat.     It  was  the 


INTRODUCTION  15 

old  battle  between  heterodoxy  and  orthodoxy,  materialist 
and  mystic,  Christian  and  Pagan,  but  fought  from  a  great 
variety  of  positions,  Arthur  Symons  summed  up  the  situa- 
tion very  effectively  in  the  conclusion  to  Studies  in  Prose  and 
Verse,  where  he  discusses  the  conversion  of  Huysmans. 
"He  has  realised,"  Mr  Symons  wTote,  "the  great  choice 
between  the  world  and  something  which  is  not  the  visible 
world,  but  out  of  which  the  visible  world  has  been  made,  does 
not  lie  in  the  mere  contrast  of  the  subtler  and  grosser  senses. 
He  has  come  to  realise  what  the  choice  really  is,  and  he  has 
chosen.  Yet  the  choice  is  not  quite  so  narrow  as  Barbey 
D  'Aurevilly  thought ;  perhaps  it  is  a  choice  between  actual- 
ising  this  dream  or  actualising  that  dream.  In  his  escape 
from  the  world,  one  man  chooses  religion,  and  seems  to  find 
himself ;  another  choosing  love  may  seem  also  to  find  him- 
self ;  and  may  not  another,  coming  to  art  as  to  a  religion 
and  as  to  a  woman,  seem  to  find  himself  not  less  effectively  ? 
The  one  certainty  is  that  societ}'  is  the  enemy  of  man,  and 
that  formal  art  is  the  enemy  of  the  artist.  We  shall  not  find 
ourselves  in  drawing-rooms  or  in  museums.  A  man  who 
goes  through  a  day  without  some  fine  emotion  has  wasted  his 
day,  whatever  he  has  gained  by  it.  And  it  is  so  easy  to  go 
through  day  after  day,  busily  and  agreeably,  without  ever 
really  living  for  a  single  instant.  Art  begins  when  a  man 
wishes  to  immortalise  the  most  vivid  moment  he  has  ever 
lived.  Life  has  already,  to  one  not  an  artist,  become  art  in 
that  moment.  And  the  making  of  one's  life  into  art  is  after 
all  the  first  duty  and  privilege  of  every  man.  It  is  to  escape 
from  material  reality  into  whatever  form  of  ecstasy  is  our 
own  form  of  spiritual  existence."  There  we  have  the  atti- 
tude of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  from  which  most  pilgi-images 
into  life  began.  In  the  following  pages  I  have  endeavoured 
to  expound  the  attitude  and  to  indicate  its  victories  and 
defeats. 

Finally,  I  have  to  thank  all  those  who  have  so  willingly 
given  me  their  aid  by  permitting  me  to  quote  from  their  works 
and  to  use  the  illustrations  A\Titten  and  pictorial  which  add 
so  much  to  the  grace  and  value  of  this  book.     Particularly 


16  INTRODUCTION 

I  must  thank  Mr  John  Lane  for  permission  to  use  the 
following  designs  by  Aubrey  Beardsley  : — "  The  Rape  of  the 
Loek,"  "Tail-piece  from  Salome,^'  and  the  cover  designs 
from  The  Yellow  Book  and  The  Savoy  ;  Mr  \Villiam  lleine- 
mann,  for  the  study  of  Rudyard  Kipling  from  Twelve 
Portraits  by  William  Nicholson;  Messrs  J.  M.  Dent  & 
Sons  Ltd.,  for  Aubrey  Beardsley 's  page  decoration  from  the 
Morte  d' Arthur ;  Messrs  George  Routledge  &  Sons  Ltd.,  for 
the  frontispiece  and  title-page  of  The  House  of  Joy,  by 
Laurence  Housman ;  the  proprietors  of  Punch,  for  "  A 
Lecture  in  Store,"  by  Phil  May  ;  the  editor  of  Vanity  Fair, 
for  the  caricature  of  Phil  May  by  Spy  ;  the  editor  of  The 
Saturday  Review,  for  William  Rothenstein's  cover  design  of 
the  Christmas  Supplement,  1896  ;  Mr  Walter  Crane  and 
Messrs  George  Allen  &  Co.  Ltd.,  for  the  illustration  from  the 
decorated  edition  of  the  Faerie  Queene  ;  Mr  Walter  Crane, 
for  the  Socialist  cartoon,  "A  Garland  for  May  Day  "  ;  Mr 
Francis  Meynell,  for  the  photograph  of  the  life  mask  of 
Francis  Thompson;  Mr  Raven  Hill,  for  "A  Voluptuary," 
from  Pick-me-up  ;  Mr  Charles  Ricketts,  for  the  decorated 
pages  from  the  Vale  Press  edition  of  John  Gray's  Spiritual 
Poems  ;  the  executors  of  William  Morris,  for  the  page  from 
the  Kelmscott  Coleridge  ;  Mr  INIax  Beerbohm,  for  his  carica- 
ture of  Aubrey  Beardsley  and  "Mr  W.  B.  Yeats  introducing 
Mr  George  Moore  to  the  Queen  of  the  Fairies  "  ;  and  my 
friends,  Mr  Frederick  H.  Evans,  for  his  portrait  study  of 
Beardsley ;  Mr  William  Rothenstein,  for  his  drawing  of 
A.  E.  Housman ;  Mr  S.  H.  Sime,  for  "  The  Banks  of  the 
Styx  "  ;  Mr  Grant  Richards,  for  the  "  Arrival  of  Prince 
Charming,"  and  "The  Peacock  Fan,"  by  Charles  Conder  ; 
and  Mr  Frederick  Richardson,  for  untiring  help  and  many 
suggestions  during  the  making  of  the  book  in  all  its  stages. 

HoLBRooK  Jackson. 
London,  October,  1913. 


CHAPTER  I 

FIN   DE   SIECLE— 1890-1900 

IN  the  year  1895  Max  Beerbohm  announced,  how  whimsic- 
ally and  how  ironically  it  is  not  necessary  to  consider, 
that  he  felt  himself  a  trifle  out-moded.  "I  belong  to 
the  Beardsley  period,"  he  said.  The  Eighteen  Nineties  were 
then  at  their  meridian  ;  but  it  was  already  the  afternoon  of 
the  Beardsley  period.  That  very  year  Aubrey  Beardsley's 
strange  black  and  white  masses  and  strong  delicate  Unes 
disappeared  from  The  Yellow  Book,  and  he  only  contributed 
to  the  first  few  numbers  of  The  Savoy,  which  began  in  1896. 
Fatal  disease  was  overtaking  him,  and  remorse.  Aubrey 
Beardsley  actually  abandoned  his  period  in  the  evening  of 
its  brief  day,  and  when  he  died,  in  1898,  the  Beardsley  period 
had  almost  become  a  memory.  But,  after  all,  Aubrey 
Beardsley  was  but  an  incident  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties, 
and  only  relatively  a  significant  incident.  He  was  but  one 
expression  oifin  de  siecle  daring,  of  a  bizarre  and  often  exotic 
courage,  prevalent  at  the  time  and  connected  but  indirectly, 
and  often  negatively,  with  some  of  the  most  vital  movements 
of  a  decade  which  was  singularly  rich  in  ideas,  personal 
genius  and  social  will.  Aubrey  Beardsley  crowded  the  vision 
of  the  period  by  the  peculiarity  of  his  art  rather  than  by  any 
need  there  was  of  that  art  to  make  the  period  complete. 
He  was,  therefore,  not  a  necessity  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties, 
although  his  appearance  in  the  decade  was  inevitable  ;  in- 
deed he  was  so  essentially  ^in  de  siecle  that  one  can  say  of  him 
with  more  confidence  than  of  any  other  artist  of  the  decade 
that  his  appearance  at  any  other  time  would  have  been 
inopportune. 

The  Eighteen  Nineties  were  so  tolerant  of  novelty  in  art 
and  ideas  that  it  would  seem  as  though  the  declining  century 
B  17 


18  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

wished  to  make  amends  for  several  decades  of  intellectual 
and  artistic  monotony.  It  may  indeed  be  something  more 
than  coincidence  that  placed  this  decade  at  the  close  of  a 
century,  and  ^in  dc  siecle  may  have  been  at  one  and  the  same 
time  a  swan  song  and  a  death-bed  repentance.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  a  quickening  of  life  during  the  last  years  of  a  century 
is  not  without  parallel.  The  preceding  century  closed  with 
the  French  Revolution  and  the  First  Consulate  of  Napoleon, 
and  the  sixteenth  century  closed  with  the  destruction  of  the 
Armada  and  the  appearance  of  Shakespeare,  Ben  Jonson, 
Spenser,  Christopher  Marlowe  and  Francis  Bacon ;  whilst 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  saw  the  Revival  of  Learning, 
and  the  discovery  of  America  by  Columbus  and  of  Newfound- 
land by  Cabot.  One  cannot  avoid  the  temptation  to  specu- 
late on  the  meaning  of  such  Jin  de  siecle  occurrences,  for  we 
are  actually  made  more  conscious  of  our  standing  towards 
time  by  the  approaching  demise  of  a  century,  just  as  we  are 
made  conscious  of  our  own  ages  on  birthday  anniversaries 
and  New  Year's  Eve.  And  it  is  at  least  thinkable  that  as  we 
are  certainly  moved  in  the  latter  circumstances  to  pull  our- 
selves together,  as  it  were,  even  if  the  effort  be  only  an  in- 
stinctive attempt  to  find  in  action  forgetfulness  of  the  flight 
of  time  ;  so  it  is  equally  thinkable  that  a  similar  but  racial 
instinct  towards  unique  activity  may  come  about  at  so  im- 
pressive a  period  as  the  close  of  a  century.  But,  whatever 
the  cause,  the  last  decade  of  the  last  century  was,  in  spite  of 
its  many  extravagances,  a  renascent  period,  characterised  by 
much  mental  activity  and  a  quickening  of  the  imagination, 
combined  with  pride  of  material  prosperity,  conquest  and 
imperial  expansion,  as  well  as  the  desire  for  social  service 
and  a  fuller  communal  and  personal  life. 

Max  Nordau,  the  Jeremiah  of  the  period,  linked  up  his 
famous  attack  on  what  were  called  ''fin  de  siecle  tendencies  " 
with  certain  traditional  beliefs  in  the  evil  destiny  of  the 
closure  of  centuries.  "The  disposition  of  the  times  is 
curiously  confused,"  he  said;  "a  compound  of  feverish 
restlessness  and  blunted  discouragement,  of  fearful  presage 
and  hang-dog  renunciation.     The  prevalent  feeling  is  that  of 


The  Yellow  Book 

An  Illustrated  Quarterly 

Volume  I    April    1894 


London:  Elkin  Mathews  &P  John  Lane 
Boston:  Copeland    &?    Day 


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FIN  DE  SIECLE-1890-1900  19 

imminent  perdition  and  extinction.  Fin  de  siecle  is  at  once 
a  confession  and  a  complaint.  The  old  northern  faith  con- 
tained the  fearsome  doctrine  of  the  Dusk  of  the  Gods.  In 
our  days  there  have  arisen  in  more  highly  developed  minds 
vague  qualms  of  the  Dusk  of  the  Nations,  in  which  all  suns 
and  all  stars  are  gradually  waning,  and  mankind  with  all  its 
institutions  and  creations  is  perishing  in  the  midst  of  a  dying 
world. "  All  of  which  sounds  very  hectic  and  hysterical  now, 
nearly  twenty  years  after  it  was  first  written,  when  many  of 
the  writers  and  artists  he  condemned  have  become  harmless 
classics,  and  some  almost  forgotten.  But  it  is  interesting  to 
remember  Nordau's  words,  because  they  are  an  example  of 
the  very  liveliness  of  a  period  which  was  equally  lively  in 
making  or  marring  itself.  The  Eighteen  Nineties,  however, 
were  not  entirely  decadent  and  hopeless  ;  and  even  their 
decadence  was  often  decadence  only  in  name,  for  much  of 
the  genius  denounced  by  Max  Nordau  as  degeneration  was  a 
sane  and  healthy  expression  of  a  vitality  which,  as  it  is  not 
difficult  to  show,  would  have  been  better  named  regeneration. 
At  the  same  time  the  fact  must  not  be  overlooked  that 
much  of  the  vitality  of  the  period,  much  even  of  its  effective 
vitality,  was  destructive  of  ideas  and  conventions  which  we 
had  come  to  look  upon  as  more  or  less  permanent ;  and  one 
cannot  help  feeling,  at  this  distance,  that  not  a  little  of  fin  de 
siecle  attractiveness  was  the  result  of  abandonment  due  to 
internal  chaos.  But  this  is  no  cause  for  condemnation  on 
our  part,  still  less  for  self-complacency  ;  for,  as  we  have  been 
told  by  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  himself  a  half-felt  motive  force, 
in  this  country  at  least,  behind  the  tendencies  of  the  times  : 
"  Unless  you  have  chaos  within  you  cannot  give  birth  to  a 
dancing  star."  More  than  one  dancing  star  swam  into  our 
ken  in  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  the 
proof  of  the  regenerative  powers  of  the  period  are  to  be  found 
most  obviously,  but  perhaps  even  more  certainly,  if  not  quite 
so  plainly,  in  the  fact  that  those  who  were  most  allied  with  its 
moods  and  whims  were  not  only  conscious  of  the  fact,  but  in 
some  cases  capable  of  looking  at  themselves  and  laughing. 
Fin  de  siecle  was  a  pose  as  well  as  a  fact,  a  point  not  realised 


20  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

by  Noidau,  John  Davidson,  among  others,  was  able  to 
smile  at  its  extravagances,  and  in  Earl  Lavender,  his  burlesque 
novel  of  the  decadence,  one  of  the  characters,  a  garrulous 
Cockney  dame  with  a  smattering  of  French,  reveals  the 
existence  of  power  to  cast  what  Meredith  would  have  called 
"  the  oblique  ray  "  upon  the  doings  of  the  time.  "  IVsfang- 
de-seeaycle  that  does  it,  my  dear,"  says  this  lady,  "and 
education,  and  reading  French." 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  people  felt  they  were  living  amid 
changes  and  struggles,  intellectual,  social  and  spiritual,  and 
the  interpreters  of  the  hour — the  publicists,  journalists  and 
popular  purveyors  of  ideas  of  all  kinds — did  not  fail  to  make 
a  sort  of  traffic  in  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Anything  strange 
or  uncanny,  anything  which  savoured  of  freak  and  perversity, 
was  swiftly  labelled  fin  de  siecle,  and  given  a  certain  topical 
prominence.  The  term  became  a  fashion,  and  writers  vied 
one  wdth  another  as  to  which  should  apply  it  most  aptly. 
At  least  one  writer  emphasised  the  phrase  in  an  attempt  to 
stigmatise  it.  "Observe,"  ^vrote  Max  Beerbohm,  "that  I 
write  no  fool's  prattle  about  le  fin  de  siecle. ^^  And  Max 
Nordau  gives  a  useful  list  illustrating  the  manner  in  which 
the  term  was  used  in  the  country  of  its  birth.  A  king  who 
abdicates  but  retains  by  agreement  certain  political  rights, 
which  he  afterwards  sells  to  his  country  to  provide  means  for 
the  liquidation  of  debts  contracted  by  play  in  Paris,  is  a  fin 
de  siecle  king.  The  police  official  who  removes  a  piece  of  the 
skin  of  the  murderer  Pranzini  after  execution  and  has  it 
tanned  and  made  into  a  cigar-case,  is  a  fin  de  siecle  official. 
An  American  wedding  ceremony  held  in  a  gasworks  and  the 
subsequent  honeymoon  in  a  balloon  is  a  fin  de  siecle  wedding. 
A  schoolboy  who,  on  passing  the  gaol  where  his  father  is 
imprisoned  for  embezzlement,  remarks  to  a  chum  :  "  Look, 
that's  the  governor's  school,"  is  a  fin  de  siecle  son.  These 
are  only  a  few  from  among  innumerable  examples  illustrating 
the  liveliness  of  the  people  of  the  Nineties  to  their  hour  and 
its  characteristics.  A  further  indication  of  the  way  in  which 
the  phrase  permeated  the  mind  of  the  period  is  found  in  its 
frequent  occurrence  in  the  books  and  essays  of  the  day.     It 


FIN  DE  SIECLE— 1890-1900  21 

appears  fittingly  enough  in  Oscar  Wilde's  The  Picture  of 
Dorian  Gray,  that  typical  book  of  the  period,  as  a  reflection 
upon  an  epigram  afterwards  used  in  A  Woman  of  No 
Importance.     Lady  Narborough  is  saying  : 

"  '  If  we  women  did  not  love  you  for  your  defects,  where 
would  you  all  be  ?  Not  one  of  you  would  ever  be  married. 
You  would  be  a  set  of  unfortunate  bachelors.  Not,  however, 
that  that  would  alter  you  much.  Nowadays  all  the  married 
men  live  like  bachelors  and  all  the  bachelors  like  married 


men 


"  '  Fin  de  siecle,'  murmured  Sir  Henry. 
"  '  Fin  du  globe,'  answered  his  hostess. 
"  'I  wish  it  were  fin  du  globe,''  said  Dorian,  with  a  sigh. 
'  Life  is  a  great  disappointment.'  " 

A  reviewer  of  the  novel,  in  The  Speaker  of  5th  July  1890, 
describes  Lord  Henry  Wotton  as  "an  extTemely  fin-de-siecle 
gentleman."  And  another  book  of  the  period,  Baron 
Verdigris :  A  Romance  of  the  Reversed  Direction,  by  Jocelyn 
Quilp,  issued  in  1894,  with  a  frontispiece  by  Beardsley,  is 
prefaced  by  the  following  inscription  : — 

This  Book  is  Dedicated  equally  to  Fin-de-Siecleism,  the 
Sensational  Novel,  and  the  Conventional  Drawing-Room 
Ballad. 

But  side  by  side  with  the  prevailing  use  of  the  phrase,  and 
running  its  popularity  very  close,  came  the  adjective  "  new  "  ; 
it  was  applied  in  much  the  same  way  to  indicate  extreme 
modernity.  Like  fin  de  siecle,  it  hailed  from  France,  and, 
after  its  original  application  in  the  phrase  Vart  nouveau  had 
done  considerable  service  in  this  country  as  a  prefix  to 
modern  pictures,  dresses  and  designs,  our  publicists  dis- 
covered that  other  things  were  equally  worthy  of  the  useful 
adjective.  Grant  Allen  wrote  of  "The  New  Hedonism  "; 
H.  D.  Traill,  of  "The  New  Fiction,"  opening  his  essay  with 
the  words  :   "  Not  to  be  new  is,  in  these  days,  to  be  nothing." 


22  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

In  August  18'J2  VVilliiini  Sharp  designed  and  produeed  one 
number,  and  one  only,  of  The  Pagan  Review,  wliieh  was 
written  entirely  by  himself  under  various  pseudonyms,  to 
promote  the  "  New  Paganism,"  deseribed  as  "a  potent 
leaven  in  the  yeast  of  the  '  younger  generation,'  and  which 
was  concerned  only  with  the  new  presentment  of  things." 
And  again,  in  the  famous  attack  on  The  Picture  of  Dorian 
Gray,  in  the  St  James's  Gazette,  on  the  first  appearance  of  the 
novel  in  the  pages  of  Lippincotfs  Monthly  Magazine  for  July 
1890,  reference  is  made  to  "  The  New  Voluptuousness  " 
which  "always  leads  up  to  bloodshedding. "  Oscar  Wilde 
himself  wrote  on  "  The  New  Remorse,"  in  The  Spirit  Lamp, 
in  1892.  The  range  of  the  adjective  gradually  spread  until 
it  embraced  the  ideas  of  the  whole  period,  and  we  find 
innumerable  references  to  the  "New  Spirit,"  the  "New 
Humour,"  the  "New  Realism,"  the  "New  Hedonism,"  the 
"New  Drama,"  the  "New  Unionism,"  the  "New  Party," 
and  the  "  New  Woman."  The  popular,  and  what  we  should 
now  call  "  significant,"  adjective  was  adopted  by  publishers 
of  periodicals,  and  during  the  decade  there  was  The  New  Age, 
a  penny  weekly  with  a  humanitarian  and  radical  objective, 
which,  after  many  vicissitudes  and  various  editorial  changes, 
still  survives ;  while  William  Ernest  Henley,  coming  under 
the  spell  of  fashion  and  carrying  his  modernism  from  the 
eighties,  translated  The  National  Observer  into  TJie  New 
Review. 

A  decade  which  was  so  conscious  of  its  own  novelty  and 
originality  must  have  had  some  characteristics  at  least  which 
distinguished  it  from  the  immediately  preceding  decade,  if 
not  from  all  preceding  decades.  The  former  is  certainly 
true  :  the  Eighteen  Nineties  possessed  characteristics  which 
were  at  once  distinctive  and  arresting,  but  I  doubt  whether 
its  sense  of  its  own  novelty  was  based  in  changes  which 
lacked  their  counterparts  in  most  of  the  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century — pre-eminently  a  century  of  change.  The 
period  was  as  certainly  a  period  of  decadence  as  it  was  a 
period  of  renaissance.  The  decadence  was  to  be  seen  in  a 
perverse  and  finicking  glorification  of  the  fine  arts  and  mere 


FIN  DE  SIECLE-1890-1900  23 

artistic  virtuosity  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  militant  commercial 
movement  on  the  other.  The  one  produced  The  Yellow 
Book  and  the  literature  and  art  of  "  fine  shades,"  with  their 
persistent  search  for  the  "  unique  word  "  and  the  "  brilliant  " 
expression;  the  other  produced  the  "Yellow  Press,"  the 
boom  in  "Kaffirs,"  the  Jameson  Raid,  the  Boer  War  and 
the  enthronement  of  the  South  African  plutocrat  in  Park 
Lane.  But  this  decadent  side  of  the  Nineties  must  not  be 
looked  upon  as  wholly  evil.  Its  separation  from  a  move- 
ment obviously  ascendant  in  spirit  is  not  altogether  admis- 
sible. The  two  tendencies  worked  together,  and  it  is  only 
for  the  sake  of  historical  analysis  that  I  adopt  the  method 
of  segregation.  Taken  thus  the  decadence  reveals  qualities 
which,  even  if  nothing  more  than  "  the  soul  of  goodness 
in  things  evil,"  are  at  times  surprisingly  excellent.  The  de- 
cadent vision  of  an  Aubrey  Beardsley  introduced  a  new  sense 
of  rhythm  into  black  and  white  art,  just  as  the,  on  the  whole, 
trivial  masters  of  "  fine  shades,"  with  their  peacock  phrases, 
helped  us  towards  a  newer,  more  sensitive  and  more  elastic 
prose  form.  The  "  Yellow  Press,"  with  all  its  extravagances, 
was  at  least  alive  to  the  desires  of  the  crowd,  and  the  reverse 
of  dull  in  the  presentment  of  its  views  ;  and  if  it  gave  Demos 
the  superficial  ideas  he  liked,  it  was  equally  prepared  to 
supply  a  better  article  when  the  demand  arose.  And,  withal, 
a  wider  publicity  was  given  to  thought-provoking  ideas  and 
imaginative  themes,  although  adjusted,  and  often  very  much 
adjusted,  to  the  average  taste,  than  had  hitherto  been 
possible.  As  for  the  "New  Park  Lane  "  and  the  "New  " 
aristocracy,  they  in  their  garish  abandonment  helped  us  to 
apply  the  abstract  science  of  economics  to  life,  thus  probably 
preparing  the  path  for  the  Super-tax  and  other  so-called 
"  Socialistic  "  legislation  of  to-day.  But  apologies  for  the 
decadent  side  of  the  period  do  not  complete  the  story  of  the 
renaissance  of  the  Nineties.  This  latter  was  more  real  than 
the  much-advertised  decadence,  and  as  time  goes  on  it  will 
prove  itself  to  have  been  more  enduring.  The  atmosphere 
of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  was  alert  with  new  ideas  which 
sought  to  find  expression  in  the  average  national  life.     If 


24  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

luxury  had  its  art  and  its  traffic,  so  had  a  saner  and  more 
balanced  social  consciousness.  If  the  one  demanded  freedom 
for  an  individual  expression  tending  towards  degeneration 
and  perversion,  the  other  demanded  a  freedom  which  should 
give  the  common  man  opportunities  for  the  redemption  of 
himself  and  his  kind.  Side  by  side  with  the  j)oseur  worked 
the  reformer,  m-ged  on  by  the  revolutionist.  There  were 
demands  for  culture  and  social  redemption.  A  wave  of 
transcendentalism  swept  the  country,  drawing  with  it  the 
brighter  intelhgences  of  all  classes ;  but  it  was  not  remote, 
it  was  of  the  earth  and  of  the  common  life  and  hour,  seeking 
the  immediate  regeneration  of  society  by  the  abolition  of  such 
social  evils  as  poverty  and  overwork,  and  the  meanness,  ugli- 
ness, ill-health  and  commercial  rapacity  which  characterised  so 
much  of  modern  life.  The  vitality  of  this  awakening  of  the 
social  consciousness  is  proved  by  its  extravagances.  In  the 
main  it  worked  persistently,  cheerfully  and  with  that  spirit 
of  compromise  dear  to  the  English  temperament,  as  can  be 
seen  by  a  reference  to  the  pages  of  The  Daily  Chronicle,  under 
the  editorship  of  A.  E.  Fletcher ;  The  Star,  under  T.  P. 
O'Connor;  The  New  Age  of  the  period  ;  Robert  Blatehford's 
Clarion,  and  W.  T.  Stead's  Reviezv  of  Reviews.  But  now  and 
then  the  cup  of  social  zeal  was  too  full ;  it  overflowed,  and 
one  heard  of  the  bomb  of  over-zealous  anarchist ;  of  the 
revolt  of  righteously  impatient  starvelings  among  the  newly 
awakened  proletariat,  and  of  the  purely  negative  militancy 
of  the  "Nonconformist  conscience,"  which  used  the  new- 
born and  enthusiastic  London  County  Council  and  Mrs 
Ormiston  Chant  as  the  instruments  of  a  moral  crusade  among 
West  End  music  halls,  then  only  just  discovered  as  more  or 
less  harmless  and  instructive  places  of  entertainment  by 
those  guardians  of  British  respectability — the  lower  middle 
classes. 

In  all  these  things  the  Eighteen  Nineties  were  unique  only 
in  method  and  in  the  empliasis  they  gave  to  certain  circum- 
stances and  ideas.  The  Eighteen  Eighties  and  the  late 
Seventies  had  been  even  more  "  artistic  "  than  the  Nineties, 
and  the  preceding  decade  had  also  its  riots  and  revolutionary 


FIN  DE  SIECLE— 1890-1900  25 

organisations.  Max  Beerbohm,  in  a  delightful  essay  which 
could  only  have  been  written  in  the  Nineties  and  could  only 
have  appeared  in  The  Yellow  Book,  has  given  us  with  subtle 
humour  and  satire  a  little  history,  not  entirely  free  from 
caricature,  of  the  Eighties.  In  the  essay  called  "  1880  "  he 
opens,  as  it  were,  a  window  in  the  house  of  the  Nineties 
through  which  we  get  a  fair  glimpse  of  the  immediate  past. 
He  says  : 

"  Beauty  had  existed  long  before  1880.  It  was  Mr  Oscar 
Wilde  who  managed  her  debut.  To  study  the  period  is  to 
admit  that  to  him  was  due  no  small  part  of  the  social  vogue 
that  Beauty  began  to  enjoy.  Fired  by  his  fervid  words,  men 
and  women  hurled  their  mahogany  into  the  streets  and 
ransacked  the  curio-shops  for  the  furniture  of  Annish  days. 
Dados  arose  upon  every  wall,  sunflowers  and  the  feathers  of 
peacocks  curved  in  every  corner,  tea  grew  quite  cold  while 
the  guests  were  praising  the  Willow  Pattern  of  its  cup.  A 
few  fashionable  women  even  dressed  themselves  in  sinuous 
draperies  and  unheard-of  greens.  Into  whatsoever  ballroom 
you  went,  you  would  surely  find,  among  the  women  in  tiaras 
and  the  fops  and  the  distinguished  foreigners,  half  a  score  of 
comely  ragamuffins  in  velveteen,  murmuring  sonnets,  postur- 
ing, waving  their  hands.  Beauty  was  sought  in  the  most  un- 
likely places.  Young  painters  found  her  robed  in  the  fogs, 
and  bank  clerks,  versed  in  the  writings  of  Mr  Hammerton, 
were  heard  to  declare,  as  they  sped  home  from  the  City,  that 
the  underground  railway  was  beautiful  from  London  Bridge 
to  Westminster,  but  not  from  Sloane  Square  to  Notting  Hill 
Gate.  iEstheticism  (for  so  they  named  the  movement)  did 
indeed  permeate  in  a  manner  all  classes.  But  it  was  to  the 
haul  monde  that  its  primary  appeal  was  made.  The  sacred 
emblems  of  Chelsea  were  sold  in  the  fashionable  toy-shops, 
its  reverently  chanted  creeds  became  the  patter  of  the 
boudoirs.  The  old  Grosvenor  Gallery,  that  stronghold  of 
the  few,  was  verily  invaded.  Never  was  such  a  fusion  of 
delighted  folk  as  at  its  private  views.  There  was  Robert 
Browning,  the  philosopher,  doffing  his  hat  with  a  courtly 


26  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

sweep  to  more  than  one  duchess.  There,  too,  was  Theo 
IMarzials,  poet  and  eccentric,  and  Charles  Cohiaghi,  the  hero 
of  a  hundred  teafights,  and  young  Brookfield,  the  comedian, 
and  many  another  good  fellow.  My  Lord  of  Dudley,  the 
virtuoso,  came  there,  leaning  for  support  upon  the  arm 
of  liis  fair  young  \Wfe.  Disraeli,  with  the  lustreless  eyes 
and  face  like  some  seamed  Hebraic  parchment,  came  also, 
and  whispered  behind  his  hand  to  the  faithful  Corry.  And 
Walter  Sickert  spread  the  latest  7not  of  '  the  Master, '  who, 
with  monocle,  cane  and  tilted  hat,  flashed  through  the  gay 
mob  anon." 

There  is  also  ample  evidence  of  the  social  earnestness  of 
the  preceding  decade  in  memories  of  the  dock  strike  of  1889, 
which  brought  John  Burns  and  Tom  Mann  to  the  front  as 
the  "  new  "  labour  leaders,  and  of  the  riots  of  1886,  which 
culminated  in  a  free  speech  demonstration  in  Trafalgar 
Square  on  Sunday,  13tli  November  1887,  when  the  Life 
Guards  were  called  out,  and  during  the  clearing  of  the  Square 
a  young  man  lost  his  life.  The  first  British  Socialist  organ- 
isation of  any  note,  the  Social  Democratic  Federation,  later 
called  the  Social  Democratic  Party,  and  more  recently 
merged  in  the  British  Socialist  Party,  was  formed  by  Henry 
Mayers  Hyndman,  who  had  for  chief  supporter  William 
Morris,  in  1881.  Two  years  later  the  Fabian  Society  was 
founded,  and  this  organisation  drew  to  its  ranks  the  middle- 
class  "intellectuals,"  who  were  beginning  to  interest  them- 
selves in  Socialism.  These  included  Sidney  W^ebb,  Bernard 
Shaw,  Sydney  Olivier,  Graham  Wallas,  Annie  Besant,  Hubert 
Bland,  Frank  Podmore,  Stewart  Headlam  and  others  who 
had  made,  or  were  about  to  make,  their  mark  in  various 
branches  of  the  intellectual  life.  It  was  these  various 
Socialist  activities  which  made  the  formation  of  the  Inde- 
pendent Labour  Party  a  possibility  in  1892,  and  the  return 
of  Keir  Hardie,  its  first  representative,  to  Parliament,  in  the 
same  year. 

But  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties 
proper,  although  dovetailed  into  the  preceding  decade,  may 


FIN  DE  SIECLE-1890-1900  27 

be  indicated  roughly  under  three  heads.  These  were  the  so- 
called  Decadence  ;  the  introduction  of  a  wSense  of  Fact  into 
literature  and  art ;  and  the  development  of  a  Transcendental 
View  of  Social  Life.  But  again,  it  must  not  be  assumed 
that  these  characteristics  were  always  separate.  To  a  very 
considerable  extent  they  overlapped,  even  where  they  were 
not  necessarily  interdependent.  Oscar  Wilde,  for  instance, 
bridged  the  chasm  between  the  self-contained  individualism 
of  the  decadents  and  the  communal  aspirations  of  the  more 
advanced  social  revolutionaries.  His  essay.  The  Soul  of 
Man  under  Socialism,  has  been  acclaimed  by  recognised 
upholders  of  Socialism.  And  even  his  earlier  sestheticism 
(which  belonged  to  the  Eighties)  was  an  attempt  to  apply 
the  idea  of  art  to  mundane  affairs.  Bernard  Shaw,  rational- 
ist and  anti-romantic  apostle  of  the  sense  of  fact,  openly  used 
art  to  provoke  thought  and  to  give  it  a  social,  as  distinct  from 
an  individualist,  aim  ;  just  as  other  and  more  direct  literary 
realists,  such  as  Emile  Zola  and  Henrik  Ibsen,  had  done  before 
him,  either  avowedly  or  by  implication.  The  more  typical 
realists  of  the  Nineties,  George  Gissing  and  George  Moore, 
seem  to  be  devoid  of  dehberate  social  purpose,  but  the  pre- 
valent didacticism  of  the  period  is  strikingly  pronounced  in 
the  work  of  H.  G.  Wells,  who  has  contrived  better  than  any 
other  writer  of  his  time  to  introduce  reality  into  his  novels 
without  jeopardising  romance,  to  hammer  home  a  theory  of 
morality  \vithout  delimiting  his  art.  But  apart  from  such 
obvious  resemblances  between  types  oi  fin  de  siecle  genius, 
the  popular  idea  of  the  period  looked  upon  one  phase  of  its 
thought  as  no  less  characteristic  than  another.  The  adjec- 
tive "  new  "  as  an  indicator  of  popular  consciousness  of 
what  was  happening,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  applied  indiffer- 
ently to  all  kinds  of  human  activity,  from  art  and  morals  to 
humour  and  Trade  Unionism. 

There  is  no  clearer  example  of  the  intimate  relationship 
between  what  might  have  been  called  the  degenerate  notions 
of  the  period  and  those  which  are  admittedly  regenerate,  than 
a  comparison  of  the  Epicurean  ideas  in  such  strikingly  differ- 
ent works  as  Oscar  Wilde's  The  Picture  of  Dorian  Gray  and 


28  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Grant  Allen's  essay  on  "The  New  Hedonism,"  which 
appeared  in  TJie  Fortnightly  Review  of  March  1894.  Oscar 
Wilde  says  : 

"  Yes  :  there  was  to  be,  as  Lord  Henry  had  prophesied,  a 
new  Hedonism  that  was  to  recreate  life,  and  to  save  it  from 
that  harsh,  uncomely  Puritanism  that  is  having,  in  our  own 
day,  its  curious  revival.  It  was  to  have  its  service  of  the 
intellect,  certainly ;  j^et  it  was  never  to  accept  any  theory 
or  system  that  would  involve  the  sacrifice  of  any  mode  of 
passionate  experience.  Its  aim,  indeed,  was  to  be  experience 
itself,  and  not  the  fruits  of  experience,  sweet  or  bitter  as  they 
might  be.  Of  the  asceticism  that  deadens  the  senses,  as  of 
the  vulgar  profligacy  that  dulls  them,  it  was  to  know  nothing. 
But  it  was  to  teach  man  to  concentrate  himself  upon  the 
moments  of  a  life  that  is  itself  but  a  moment." 

Here  we  have  a  kind  of  self-culture  by  the  constant  varia- 
tion of  experiences,  mostly  passionate,  with  little  if  any 
reference  to  the  rest  of  humanity.  In  a  sense  it  is  not  a  new 
Hedonism  at  all,  but  a  Hedonism  which  had  existed  from 
time  immemorial,  although  it  found  its  way  into  Oscar  Wilde's 
novel  by  the  aid  of  two  modern  books.  One  of  these,  the 
A  Rebours  of  Joris  Karl  Huysmans,  may  be  said  to  contain 
the  apotheosis  of  the  fin  de  siecle  spirit ;  the  other.  The 
Renaissance,  by  Walter  Pater,  containing  a  famous  passage 
which  became  the  precious  gospel  of  the  Esthetic  Movement 
of  the  Seventies  and  Eighties.  It  was  new,  however,  in  so 
far  as  it  reacted  against  the  "  Nonconformist  conscience  "  of 
the  moment.  But  that  it  was  not  the  only  "  New  "  Hedon- 
ism may  be  realised  by  reference  to  Grant  Allen's  essay,  which 
is  little  more  than  a  veiled  piece  of  Socialist  propaganda. 
The  central  idea  of  this  sociological  Hedonism  is  shown  in 
the  following  extract : — 

"  Self-development,  on  the  contrary,  is  an  aim  for  all — an 
aim  which  will  make  all  stronger,  and  saner,  and  wiser,  and 
better.  To  be  sound  in  wind  and  limb  ;  to  be  healthy  of 
body  and  mind  ;    to  be  educated,  to  be  emancipated,  to  be 


FIN  DE  SIECLE— 1890-1900  29 

free,  to  be  beautiful — these  things  are  ends  towards  which 
all  should  strain,  and  by  attaining  which  all  are  happier  in 
themselves,  and  more  useful  to  others.  That  is  the  central 
idea  of  the  new  hedonism.  We  see  clearly  that  it  is  good  for 
every  man  among  us  that  he  and  every  other  man  should 
be  as  tall,  as  strong,  as  well  knit,  as  supple,  as  wholesome, 
as  effective,  as  free  from  vice  or  defect  as  possible.  We  see 
clearly  that  it  is  his  first  duty  to  make  his  own  muscles,  his 
own  organs,  his  own  bodily  functions,  as  perfect  as  he  can 
make  them,  and  to  transmit  them  in  like  perfection,  un- 
spoiled, to  his  descendants.  We  see  clearly  that  it  is  good 
for  every  woman  among  us  that  she  and  every  other  woman 
should  be  as  physically  developed  and  as  finely  equipped  for 
her  place  as  mother  as  it  is  possible  to  make  herself.  We  see 
that  is  good  for  every  woman  that  there  should  be  such  men, 
and  for  every  man  that  there  should  be  such  women.  We 
see  it  is  good  for  every  child  that  it  should  be  born  of  such  a 
father  and  such  a  mother.  We  see  that  to  prepare  ourselves 
for  the  duties  of  paternity  and  maternity,  by  making  our- 
selves as  vigorous  and  healthful  as  we  can  be,  is  a  duty  we 
all  owe  to  our  children  unborn  and  to  one  another.  We  see 
that  to  sacrifice  ourselves,  and  inferentially  them,  is  not  a 
thing  good  in  itself,  but  rather  a  thing  to  be  avoided  where 
practicable,  and  only  to  be  recommended  in  the  last  resort  as 
an  unsatisfactory  means  of  escape  from  graver  evils.  We  see 
that  each  man  and  each  woman  holds  his  virility  and  her 
femininity  in  trust  for  humanity,  and  that  to  play  fast  and 
loose  with  either,  at  the  bidding  of  priests  or  the  behest  of 
Puritans,  is  a  bad  thing  in  itself,  and  is  fraught  with  danger 
for  the  State  and  for  future  generations." 

The  intellectual,  imaginative  and  spiritual  activities  of  the 
Eighteen  Nineties  are  concerned  mainly  with  the  idea  of 
social  life  or,  if  you  will,  of  culture  ;  and  the  individual  and 
social  phases  of  that  culture  are  broadly  represented  by  the 
above  quotations.  For  that  reason  alone  the  period  is  inter- 
esting apart  from  any  achievements  in  art  or  science  or  state- 
craft.    It  is  interesting  because  it  was  a  time  when  people 


30  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

went  about  frankly  and  cheerfully  endeavouring  to  solve  the 
question  "  How  to  Live."  From  one  point  of  view  such  an 
employment  suggests  the  bewilderment  of  a  degenerate 
world,  and  it  would  seem  entirely  to  justify  the  lamentations 
of  Max  Nordau  ;  but  those  who  lived  through  the  Nineties 
as  young  men  and  women  will  remember  that  this  search  for 
a  new  mode  of  life  was  anything  but  melancholy  or  diseased. 
The  very  pursuit  was  a  mode  of  life  sufficiently  joyful  to 
make  life  worth  living.  But  in  addition  there  was  the  feeling 
of  expectancy,  born  not  alone  of  a  mere  toying  with  novel 
ideas,  but  born  equally  of  a  determination  to  taste  new 
sensation,  even  at  some  personal  risk,  for  the  sake  of  life  and 
growth. 

"A  great  creative  period  is  at  hand,"  wrote  William 
Sharp,  in  his  preface  to  Vistas  ;  "  probably  a  great  dramatic 
epoch.  But  what  will  for  one  thing  differentiate  it  from 
any  predecessor  is  the  new  complexity,  the  new  subtlety, 
in  apprehension,  in  formative  conception,  in  imaginative 
rendering." 

It  was  an  era  of  hope  and  action.  People  thought  any- 
thing might  happen  ;  and,  for  the  young,  any  happening 
sufficiently  new  was  good.  Little  of  the  older  sentimental- 
ism  survived  among  the  modernists  ;  those  who  were  of  the 
period  desired  to  be  in  the  movement,  and  not  mere  spec- 
tators. It  was  a  time  of  experiment.  Dissatisfied  with  the 
long  ages  of  convention  and  action  which  arose  out  of  pre- 
cedent, many  set  about  testing  life  for  themselves.  The  new 
man  wished  to  be  himself,  the  new  woman  threatened  to  live 
her  own  life.  The  snapping  of  apron-strings  caused  con- 
sternation in  many  a  decent  household,  as  young  men  and 
maidens  were  suddenly  inspired  to  develop  their  own  souls 
and  personalities.  Never,  indeed,  was  there  a  time  when  the 
young  were  so  young  or  the  old  so  old.  No  family,  were 
its  record  for  solid  British  respectability  established  on  no 
matter  how  secure  a  basis,  was  immune  from  new  ideas  ; 
and  if  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  Eighteen  Eighties  were  inspired 
to  throw  their  mahogany  into  the  streets,  as  we  have  been 
assured  they  were  by  Max  Beerbohm,  their  successors  of  the 


FIN  DE  SIECLE— 1890-1900  31 

Eighteen  Nineties  were  barely  constrained  from  doing  the 
same  with  their  most  cherished  principles.  Decadent  minor 
poets  sprang  up  in  the  most  unexpected  places.  The  staidest 
of  Nonconformist  circles  begot  strange,  pale  youths  with 
abundant  hair,  whose  abandoned  thoughts  expressed  them- 
selves in  "  purple  patches  "  of  prose,  and  whose  sole  aim  in 
life  was  to  live  "passionately  "  in  a  succession  of  "  scarlet 
moments."  Life-tasting  was  the  fashion,  and  the  rising 
generation  felt  as  though  it  were  stepping  out  of  the  cages 
of  convention  and  custom  into  a  freedom  full  of  tremendous 
possibilities. 

There  were  misigivings  in  more  directions  than  one,  but 
these  had  small  effect  upon  the  spirit  of  the  first  half  of  the 
decade.  The  experimental  life  went  on  in  a  swirl  of  song 
and  dialectics.  Ideas  w  ere  in  the  air.  Things  were  not  what 
they  seemed,  and  there  were  visions  about.  The  Eighteen 
Nineties  was  the  decade  of  a  thousand  "movements." 
People  said  it  was  a  "period  of  transition,"  and  they 
were  convinced  that  they  were  passing  not  only  from 
one  social  system  to  another,  but  from  one  morality  to 
another,  from  one  culture  to  another,  and  from  one  religion 
to  a  dozen  or  none  !  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  no 
concerted  action.  Everybody,  mentally  and  emotionally, 
was  running  about  in  a  hundred  different  directions.  There 
was  so  much  to  think  about,  so  much  to  discuss,  so  much  to 
see.  "A  New  Spirit  of  Pleasure  is  abroad  amongst  us," 
observed  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  "  and  one  that  blows  from 
no  mere  coteries  of  hedonistic  philosophers,  but  comes  on  the 
four  winds. ' '  The  old  sobriety  of  mind  had  left  our  shores, 
and  we  changed  from  a  stohd  into  a  volatile  nation.  At  this 
time  the  provinces  saw  the  birth  of  a  new  type  of  music  hall, 
the  "Palace  of  Varieties,"  with  two  performances  a  night, 
and  we  began  to  amuse  ourselves. 

Our  new-found  freedom  seemed  to  find  just  the  expression 
it  needed  in  the  abandoned  nonsense  chorus  of  Ta-ra-ra- 
hoom-de-ay  !  ^  which,  lit  at  the  red  skirts  of  Lottie  Collins, 
spread  like  a  dancing  flame  through  the  land,  obsessing  the 

'  See  A  Modern  History  oj  the  English  People,  by  R.  H.  Gretton. 


32  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

minds  of  young  and  old,  gay  and  sedate,  until  it  became  a 
veritable  song-pest,  provoking  satires  even  upon  itself  in  the 
music  halls  of  its  origin.  No  song  ever  took  a  people  in  quite 
the  same  way  ;  from  1802  to  1896  it  affected  the  country  like 
an  epidemic  ;  and  during  those  years  it  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  absurd  ga  ira  of  a  generation  bent  upon  kicking  over 
the  traces.  Even  to  this  day  one  can  hear  the  song  in  the 
streets  of  Boulogne  and  Dieppe,  where  the  urchins  croak  it 
for  the  benefit  of  the  English  visitor,  under  the  firm  convic- 
tion that  it  is  the  British  National  Anthem,  and  in  hopes 
that  the  patriotic  Britishers  will  reward  their  efforts  with 
petit  sous.^ 

The  old  dim  and  dowdy  chop-houses  and  taverns  also 
changed  with  our  new  mood,  and  they  were  replaced  by 
larger  and  brighter  restaurants  and  "  tea  shops,"  daintier 
food  and  orchestras,  and  we  extended  the  habit  of  dining  out, 
and  mixing  afternoon  tea  with  shopping. 

The  "  safety  "  bicycle  was  invented,  and  it  took  its  place 
as  an  instrument  of  the  "  new  "  freedom  as  we  glided  forth 
in  our  thousands  into  the  country,  accompanied  by  our 
sisters  and  sweethearts  and  wives,  who  sometimes  abandoned 
skirts  for  neat  knickerbocker  suits.  "  The  world  is  divided 
into  two  classes,"  said  a  wit  of  the  period,  "  those  who  ride 
bicycles  and  those  who  don't."  But  the  great  novelty  was 
the  woman  cyclist,  the  New  Woman  rampant,  but  she  was 
sometimes  very  charming  also,  and  we  immortalised  her  in 
our  Palaces  of  Varieties  : 

"  Daisy,  Daisy,  give  me  your  answer  do, 
I'm  half  crazy  all  for  the  love  of  you! 
It  won't  be  a  stylish  marriage, 
I  can't  afford  a  carriage. 
But  you'll  look  neat, 
Upon  the  seat 
Of  a  bicycle  made  for  two." 

^  This  was  true  in  191 3,  but  now  (1922)  a  new  generation  of  urchins 
has  arisen  in  Boulogne  and  other  French  towns  who  know  not  Ta-ra-ra- 
boo)ii-dc-ay.     This  famous  ditty  has  been  declassed  by  Tippcrairie. 


CHAPTER  II 

PERSONALITIES   AND   TENDENCIES 

SUCH  manifestations  of  liveliness  may  seem  to  be  of 
no  very  great  importance  to-day,  but  many  minor 
freedoms  now  enjoyed  by  all  without  question  were 
then  the  subjects  of  battle.  It  is  difficult  to  realise  even  now 
how  many  changes  in  taste,  ideas  and  habits  were  crammed 
into  the  fin  de  siecle  decade.  For  it  has  been  too  readily 
assumed  that  the  achievement  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  is 
confined  to  that  literary  and  artistic  renaissance  described  by 
W.  G.  Blaikie  Murdoch  in  The  Renaissance  of  the  Nineties. 
But  such  a  conclusion  is  unjust  to  the  period.  The  fine  arts 
did  flourish  during  the  decade,  and  although  many  of  the 
results  were  as  ephemeral  as  they  were  extraordinary,  others 
represent  permanent  additions  to  our  store  of  artistic  expres- 
sion. Still,  this  habit  of  looking  upon  the  renaissance  as  an 
affair  of  books  and  pictures  has  led  too  many  into  the  belief 
that  the  main  current  of  the  artistic  movement  was  solely 
an  extension  of  the  art-for-art's-sake  principle  ;  when,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  renaissance  of  the  Nineties  was  far  more 
concerned  with  art  for  the  sake  of  life  than  with  art  for  the 
sake  of  art.  The  men  with  the  larger  prodigality  of  genius 
were  not  engaged  chiefly  with  art  as  art ;  for  good  or  ill  they 
were  engaged  equally  with  ideas  and  life.  Popular  taste  also 
was  attracted  by  the  artist-philosopher,  as  may  be  seen  by  its 
readiness  to  appreciate  the  older  and  more  didactic  painters 
and  writers — just  as  in  other  years  it  had  enjoyed  the  didac- 
ticism of  Charles  Dickens,  Thus  George  Frederick  Watts, 
Holman  Hunt,  Ford  Madox  Brown,  Burne-Jones,  for  in- 
stance, though  not  of  the  period,  received  their  nearest 
approach  to  popularity  then ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
William  Morris,  Walter  Crane,  and  the  craftsmen  generally 

c  3Z 


34  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

who  had  evolved  out  of  the  Ruskiiiian  gospel  of  "joy  and 
work  "  and  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement. 

This  obvious  taste  on  the  part  of  the  thoughtful  public  of 
the  fin  dc  sicde  for  art  served  with  ideas  found  mueh  to  its 
liking  in  the  writers  who  came  into  prominence  during  the 
time.  Oscar  Wilde  I  have  already  indicated  as  bridging 
the  Eighties  and  Nineties,  just  as  his  art  united  the  un- 
compromising artistic  sufficiency  upheld  by  Whistler  and  the 
art-culture  of  Pater.  But  there  w^ere  in  literature,  besides, 
Bernard  Shaw  and  H.  G.  Wells,  using  plays  and  novels  for 
criticising  morality  and  teacliing  newer  modes  of  social  life  ; 
Rudyard  Kipling  and  William  Ernest  Henley  using  verse 
to  stinmlate  patriotism ;  Francis  Adams  singing  revolt ; 
Edward  Carpenter,  democracy ;  W^illiam  Watson,  justice  ; 
and  these  were  as  characteristic  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties 
as  the  self-centred  poets  and  critics  and  storytellers  who 
clustered  about  Tlie  Yellow  Book  and  The  Savoy.  Even 
painters,  Charles  Ricketts  and  James  Pryde  and  William 
Nicholson,  t^'pical  products  of  the  period,  turned  their  genius 
for  a  time  into  the  realm  of  appUed  art ;  the  first,  like  \Villiam 
Morris,  in  the  making  of  beautiful  books,  and  the  two  latter 
by  becoming,  under  the  pseudonym  of  the  Beggarstaff 
Brothers,  the  founders  of  our  modern  school  of  poster  de- 
signers. And  apart  from  all  of  these  instances  of  art  applied 
to  life,  or  used  to  stimulate  life,  the  abundant  practical 
genius  of  an  age  which  strove  always  to  express  itself  in  the 
reordering  of  social  conditions,  in  innimierable  activities 
called  "progressive,"  embracing  besides  social,  commercial, 
scientific  and  imperial  affairs,  supplies  sufficient  evidence  of 
the  breadth  and  variety  of  a  renaissance  which  strove  to 
triumph  over  what  was  merely  artistic. 

The  movement  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties,  however,  which 
has  most  engaged  the  attention  of  writers,  the  movement 
called  "Decadent,"  or  by  the  names  of  Oscar  Wilde  or 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  the  movement  Max  Nordau  denounced 
in  Europe  generally,  and  recently  summed  up  by  The  Times 
under  the  epithet  "The  Yellow  Nineties,"  does  even  now 
dominate  the  vision  as  we  look  backwards.     And,  indeed, 


CovKu  Df.si<;n  ov  The  SArcRDAY  KEiiEir  Chki^vma^  Supi'Lp:mi:nt  (1S96) 

Bv  U'i'.liniii  Rothenstfin 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      35 

though  only  a  part  of  the  renaissance,  it  was  sufficiently 
"brilliant,"  to  use  one  of  its  own  cliches,  to  dazzle  those 
capable  of  being  dazzled  by  the  achievements  of  art  and 
letters  for  many  years  to  come.  For  a  renaissance  of  art 
and  ideas  which  in  literature  had  for  exemplars  Oscar  Wilde 
(his  best  books  were  all  published  in  the  Nineties),  Bernard 
Shaw,  H.  G.  Wells,  Rudyard  Kipling,  John  Davidson,  Hubert 
Crackenthorpe,  W.  B.  Yeats,  J.  M.  Barrie,  Alice  Meynell, 
George  jMoore,  Israel  Zangwill,  Henry  Harland,  George 
Gissing,  "  John  Oliver  Hobbes,"  Grant  Allen,  Quiller  Couch, 
Max  Beerbohm,  Cunninghame  Graham,  Fiona  Macleod 
(William  Sharp),  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  Ernest  Dowson, 
Arthur  Symons,  Lionel  Johnson,  and  A.  B.  Walkley  ;  and 
in  pictorial  art,  James  Pryde,  W^illiam  Nicholson,  Phil  May, 
William  Orpen,  Aubrey  Beardsley,  E.  E.  Hornel,  Wilson 
Steer,  Charles  Ricketts,  J.  J.  Shannon,  Charles  Shannon, 
John  Lavery,  John  Duncan  Fergusson,  J.  T.  Peploe,  Charles 
Conder  and  William  Rothenstein  could  not  have  been  other 
than  arresting,  could  not,  indeed,  be  other  than  important 
in  the  history  of  the  arts.  For,  whatever  may  be  the  ultim- 
ate place  of  these  workers  in  literature  and  painting  in  the 
national  memory,  and  whatever  value  we  set  upon  them 
then  and  now,  few  will  deny  that  even  the  least  of  them  did 
not  contribute  something  of  lasting  or  of  temporary  worth 
to  the  sensations  and  ideas  of  their  age,  or  its  vision  of  life, 
and  to  its  conception  of  spiritual  or  mental  power. 

As  to  what  individuals  among  these  \\Titers  and  painters 
were  the  peculiar  products  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties — that  is, 
those  who  could  not,  or  might  not,  have  been  produced  by 
any  other  decade — it  is  not  always  easy  to  say.  In  dealing 
with  the  wTiters  the  book-lists  of  John  Lane,  Elkin  Mathews 
and  Leonard  Smithers  are  useful  guides  in  any  process  of 
narrowing-down ;  and  further  guidance  may  be  found  by  a 
perusal  of  the  files  of  The  Yellow  Book  and  The  Savoy,  for 
these  two  publications  were  the  favourite  lamps  around 
which  the  most  bizarre  moths  of  the  Nineties  clustered. 
There  were  few  essential  writers  of  the  Nineties  who  did  not 
contribute  to  one  or  the  other,  and  the  very  fact  that  Henry 


36  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Harland,  who  edited  the  former,  and  Arthur  Symons,  who 
edited  the  latter,  were  able  to  gather  together  so  many 
writers  and  artists  who  were  at  once  novel  and  notable, 
emphasises  the  distinction  of  the  artistic  activities  of  the 
time.  But  that  emphasis  should  not  be  taken  as  indicating 
merely  an  awakening  of  virtuosity  during  the  Nineties  ; 
the  many  definite  artistic  movements,  embracing  both 
writers  and  painters  and  craftsmen,  could  not  have  occurred 
had  there  not  been  a  considerable  receptivity  among  the 
people  of  the  time.  A  renaissance  of  art  depends  equally 
upon  artist  and  public  :  the  one  is  the  complement  of  the 
other.  The  Eighteen  Nineties  would  have  been  unworthy 
of  special  notice  had  there  not  been  a  public  capable  of 
responding  to  its  awakening  of  taste  and  intelligence. 

But  doubt  is  set  at  rest  when  we  remember  how  numerous 
were  the  excellent  periodicals  issued  with  fair  evidence  of 
success.  No  other  decade  in  English  history  has  produced 
so  many  distinctive  and  ambitious  publications  ;  for,  apart 
from  The  Yellow  Book  and  The  Savoy,  there  were  The  Parade, 
The  Pageant,  The  Evergreen.  The  Chameleon,  The  Hobby 
Horse,  The  Rose  Leaf  and,  later  on,  The  Quarto,  The  Dome, 
and  that  able  magazine's  musical  brother.  The  Chord.  These 
periodicals  were,  of  course,  the  journals  which  represented 
the  unique  qualities  in  the  literature  and  art  of  the  decade  ; 
they  were  bone  of  its  bone  and  flesh  of  its  flesh.  But,  im- 
portant as  they  are,  they  do  not  by  any  means  complete  the 
typical  and  characteristic  journalism  of  the  period,  for  many 
less  exclusive  journals,  journals  making  a  \vider  public 
appeal,  must  be  named — such  notable  examples  of  periodical 
literature  and  art,  for  example,  as  The  Studio,  The  Butterfly, 
The  Poster,  To-Morrow,  Eureka,  and  more  popular  still,  but 
excellent  also  in  their  way.  The  Idler,  To-Day  and  Pick-me- 
up.  The  last,  during  its  best  days,  and  these  covered  several 
years,  had  among  its  contributors  many  of  the  best  black- 
and-white  artists  of  the  decade ;  Phil  May,  Raven  Hill, 
A.  S.  Hartrick,  W.  T.  Manuel,  S.  H.  Sime  and  Edgar  Wilson 
regularly  sent  drawings  to  this  sportive  publication,  which 
for  genius  and  humour  have  not  been  excelled,  even  by  Punch. 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      37 

But  although  these  publications  must  be  named  to  the  credit 
of  the  period,  many  of  them,  like  many  of  the  distinguished 
writers  I  have  named,  might  conceivably  have  been  produced 
at  any  time  during  the  past  forty  years.  Pick-me-up,  for 
example,  presented  no  new  point  of  view  ;  it  was  sprightly 
and  humorous  in  the  popular  sense — that  is  to  say,  it  ex- 
pressed the  inconsequent  outlook  of  the  hon  viveur  of  fiction 
— and  persistently  assumed  that  cosmopolitan  Piccadilly 
Circus-cum-Leicester  Square,  and  the  Anglo-American  Boule- 
vards des  Italiens-cum-Montmartre  (after  midnight)  were  the 
last  words  in  "life."  In  short.  Pick-me-up  represented  the 
false  and  altogether  absurd  "  Gay  Paree  "  view  of  things — 
and  to  that  extent  it  was  not  of  a  day  but  of  all  time.  Such 
an  attitude,  however,  is  not  inconsistent  with  a  genius  for  art, 
and  Pick-me-up  possessed  a  staff  of  black-and-white  draughts- 
men of  unequalled  ability,  and  sometimes  of  rare  genius  ; 
and  in  addition  to  its  native  talent  it  also  introduced  to  this 
country  the  work  of  good  foreign  draughtsmen,  including 
that  of  the  great  French  artist  Steinlen.  Still,  an  able  group 
of  black-and-white  artists  is  by  no  means  a  peculiarity  of  the 
Nineties.  The  Sixties  had  Once  a  Week — and  Punch  has 
reigned  supreme  from  the  Forties  till  to-day.  Phil  May  and 
Raven  Hill  belonged  to  the  artistic  eminence  of  the  Nineties, 
but,  individual  as  they  are,  they  might  have  happened  in  any 
other  decade  since  Charles  Keene  and  John  Leech  created 
the  modern  humorous  pen  drawing.  One  Pick-me-up  artist, 
and  only  one,  had  an}i;hing  approaching  fin  de  siecle  tend- 
encies ;  that  artist  was  (and  is)  S.  H.  Sime  :  he  is  an  art 
product  of  the  Nineties,  along  with  Aubrey  Beardsley, 
Charles  Conder,  Charles  Ricketts  and  Laurence  Housman. 

The  literary  movement  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  has  had 
full  opportunity  of  insisting  upon  itself,  but  had  no  such 
opportunity  existed  the  books  of  the  period  would  have  stood 
out  with  a  certain  distinction.  In  the  year  1890  the  literary 
field  was  so  dominated  by  men  whose  reputations  had  long 
since  been  established,  either  with  the  inner  circle  of  bookish 
people  or  the  larger  public,  that  any  new-comers,  especially 
in  poetry,  were  apt  to  be  labelled  "  minor."     Tennyson  was 


38  THE  ETGITTEKN  NINETIES 

still  alive,  and  Robert  Browning  had  died  only  in  the  previous 
year  ;  Philip  James  IJailey  was  living,  though  forgotten,  and 
Martin  Tapper,  like  Browning,  had  passed  away  in  1880, 
William  Morris  and  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  although 
fully  recognised  as  major  poets,  had  still  some  good  work  to 
do,  and  there  were  a  select  few  who  admired  the  poetry  of 
Coventry  Patmore,  and  many  who  thought  well  of  the  works 
of  Lewis  Morris,  And  among  women  singers  Jane  Ingelow 
was  still  living,  and  Christina  Rossetti  was  yet  to  publish 
two  more  volumes, 

John  Ruskin  and  Walter  Pater  were  not  only  alive,  but 
their  aesthetic-social  messages  were  finding  ever  wider  fields 
of  acceptance,  "The  acute  but  honourable  minority," 
which  hitherto  had  been  George  Meredith's  way  of  referring 
to  his  own  small  following,  was  rapidh^  becoming  a  respect- 
able body  of  supporters,  aided  not  a  little  by  the  discerning 
but  whole-hearted  trumpeting  of  a  young  man  from  Liver- 
pool, Richard  Le  Gallienne,  who  was  to  become  a  notability 
of  the  Nineties,  Thomas  Hardy,  also,  was  established,  and 
like  Meredith  winning  to  a  wider,  though  not  so  tardy,  popu- 
larity ;  and  he  also  was  heralded  by  a  young  poet  of  the 
period,  Lionel  Johnson,  in  a  fine  study  called  TJie  Art  of 
Thomas  Hardy  (1894),  John  Henry  Newman  ended  his 
ardent  life  in  1890,  but  Cardinal  Manning  was  still  living  ;  so 
also  were  the  popular  Church  of  England  divines,  Archdeacon 
Farrar  and  Canon  Liddon,  the  equally  popular  Nonconform- 
ist, Charles  Spurgeon,  and  at  the  antipodes  of  their  faith, 
James  Martineau,  In  science  the  great  names  of  Thomas 
Henry  Huxley,  John  Tyndall,  Herbert  Spencer,  Francis 
Galton  were  honoured  among  living  geniuses  ;  and  so  was 
that  of  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  who  survived  until  the  eve 
of  the  Great  War.  The  historian,  James  Anthony  Fronde, 
died  in  1894,  and  W,  E,  H,  Lecky  lived  through  the  decade, 

Literar}'^  reputations  beginning  in  the  Seventies  and 
Eighties,  and  only  in  a  few  eases  awaiting  further  buttressing 
in  the  Nineties,  were  numerous  ;  these,  besides  those  already 
named,  included  W.  H,  Mallock,  Edmund  Gosse,  Andrew 
Lang,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  Frederic  Harrison,  William 


CovKK  Dk.su;n  of  The  Savoy,  Voiamk  I 

By  Aubrey  Beardslcy 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      30 

Ernest  Henley,  John  Addington  Synionds,  Arthur  Pinero, 
Sidney  Colvin,  Austin  Dobson,  Edward  Dowden,  H.  D.  Traill, 
Theodore   Watts-Uunton,   Stopford    Brooke,   James   Payn, 
Leslie  Stephen,  Henry  James,  Grant  Allen,  William  Black, 
Robert    Bridges,    Frederick    Wedmore,    and    among    more 
popular  writers,   Marie  Corelli,   Rider  Haggard,   and  Hall 
Caine.     Mrs  Humphry  Ward  had   become  famous  on  the 
publication  of  Robert  Elsmere,  in  1888,  but  the  importance  of 
her  work  during  the  succeeding  decade  places  her,  as  it  does 
also  George  Moore,  Rudyard  Kipling  and  George  Gissing, 
each  of  whom  did  good  work  before  1890,  in  the  newer  move- 
ment.    This  latter  was  not,  however,  to  have  its  effect  on 
the  younger  generation  alone,  it  was  so  irresistible  as  to 
inspire  even  those  whose  life-work  was  more  or  less  done  to 
new  and  modern  activities.     Thus  Thomas  Hardy  began  a 
new  phase  of  his  art  in  1891  with  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles, 
following  it  with  the  masterly,  and  ultra-modern,  Jude  the 
Obscure,  in  1895.     He   also  published  his  first  volume  of 
poems,  Wessex  Poems,  in  1898.     William  Morris  published 
most  of  his  prose  romances  in  the  Nineties,  including  News 
from  Nowhere,  in  1891,  and  in  quick  succession  The  Roots  of 
the  Mountains,  The  Story  of  the  Glittering  Plain,  The  Wood 
Beyond  the  World,  and  The  Well  at  the  World's  End.     The 
Water  of  the  Wondrous  Isles  and  The  Story  of  the  Sundering 
Flood  were  left  in  manuscript  and  published  after  his  death. 
John  Addington  Symonds,  whose  chief  work.  The  History  of 
the  Italian  Renaissance,  was  completed  between  the  years 
1875-1886,  published  In  the  Key  of  Blue,  a  book  so  typical 
in  some  ways  of  the  Nineties  that  it  might  well  have  been 
\^Titten  by  one  of  the  younger  generation.     Frederick  Wed- 
more, without  being  fin  de  siecle,  published  Renunciations  (a 
very  Eighteen-Ninety  title  !)  in  1893,  and  English  Episodes, 
in  1894,  both  of  these  have  a  freshness  of  vision  quite  of  the 
period.     Theodore  Watts-Danton  published  his  gipsy  novel, 
Aylwin  (1898).     The  great  veteran  of  black-and-white  art, 
George  du  Maurier,  suddenly  became  a  popular  novelist  with 
the  famous  Trilby  in  1894.,  which  had  been  preceded  by  Peter 
Ibbetson  (1891)  and  succeeded  l^y  The  Martian  (1896) ;   and 


40  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINP:TIES 

another  veteran  artist  of  great  eminence  also  reasserted  him- 
self as  a  writer  of  first-rate  power  during  the  period,  for  it  was 
not  until  1890  that  James  MeNeill  Whistler  collected  and 
published  in  a  delightful  volume  his  "  Ten  O'Clock  "  lecture, 
and  his  various  letters  to  the  newspapers,  with  other  Press 
cuttings,  under  the  appropriate  title  of  The  Gentle  Art  of 
Making  Enemies.  Grant  Allen,  besides  becoming  a  journal- 
istic champion  of  the  new  school,  himself  joined  the  younger 
generation  by  the  publication  of  The  Woman  Who  Did,  in 
1895,  and  Arthur  W.  Pinero,  like  Thomas  Hardy  with  his 
novels,  began  a  new  phase  as  a  playwTight  with  the  produc- 
tion of  The  Second  Mrs  Tanqueray,  in  1893  ;  for,  doubtless, 
both  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles  and  The  Second  Mrs  Tanqneray 
would  have  been  premature  in  the  Eighties.  And,  finally, 
Richard  Whiteing,  veteran  journalist,  but  unknown  to  the 
public  byname,  suddenly  became  something  like  famous  by  the 
publication  of  No.  -7  John  Street,  in  the  last  year  of  the  decade. 
Further  evidence  of  the  stimulating  atmosphere  of  the 
period  is  to  be  found  in  the  number  of  writers  who  sprang 
into  existence  out  of  the  Zeitgeist  of  the  decade,  as  people  in 
this  country  were  beginning  to  call  the  spirit  of  the  times.  I 
do  not  mean  those  who  were  of  the  period  in  the  narrower 
sense,  but  those  who,  taking  that  which  every  ^\Titer  takes 
from  his  time,  were  sufficiently  general  in  attitude  not  to 
have  been  peculiar  to  any  movement.  Among  such  \^Titers 
may  be  named  J.  M.  Barrie,  Conan  Doyle,  Maurice  Hewlett, 
Owen  Seaman,  Barry  Pain,  Pett  Ridge,  Israel  Zangwill, 
Anthony  Hope,  W.  H.  Hudson,  Joseph  Conrad,  Jerome  K. 
Jerome,  Stanley  Weyman,  H.  A.  Vachell,  Stephen  Phillips, 
Henry  Newbolt,  A.  E.  Housman,  Arthur  Christopher  Benson, 
William  Watson,  Allen  Upward,  and  the  late  G.  W.  Steevens, 
all  of  whom  published  their  first  notable  work  in  the  Nineties, 
and  in  many  instances  their  best  work.  A  qualification  is 
necessary  in  the  case  of  W.  H.  Hudson,  whose  earliest  work, 
The  Purjjle  Land  that  England  Lost,  was  born  "  out  of  its  due 
time  "  in  1885,  and  consequently  neglected  by  critics  and 
public.  Had  this  remarkable  book  been  puljlished  ten  years 
later,  under  its  abridged  title,  TJie  Purple  Land,  such  a  fate 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      41 

might  not  have  befallen  it ;  the  Nineties  almost  certainly 
would  have  accorded  it  that  recognition  for  which  it  had  to 
await  twice  ten  years.  Robert  Hichens  should  also  appear 
in  the  above  list,  but  the  fact  that  he  wrote  in  The  Green 
Carnation  (1894)  the  most  notable  satire  of  the  period  brings 
him  into  the  more  exclusive  movement. 

The  writers  most  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  time,  direct 
outcome  of  circumstances  peculiar  to  the  fin  de  siecle,  will  be 
more  fully  considered  in  other  chapters  of  this  book.  Suffice 
it  to  say  here  that  they  fall  roughly  into  groups  which  express 
ideas  and  tendencies  then  prevalent  and,  if  not  always  taking 
the  form  of  designed  movements,  indicating  the  existence  of 
very  definite  though  subconscious  movements  in  the  psycho- 
logy of  the  nge.  Delightful  among  ^n  de  siecle  writers  were 
those  masters  of  a  new  urbanity,  which,  although  in  the 
direct  tradition  of  Addison  and  Steele,  of  Dr  Johnson  and 
Charles  Lamb,  possessed  a  fiair  of  its  own,  a  whimsical  per- 
versity, a  "brilliance, "  quite  new  to  English  letters.  First  and 
most  eminent  of  these  urbane  essayists,  for  like  their  earlier 
prototypes  they  practised  mainly  the  essayist's  art,  comes 
Max  Beerbohm,  who  considered  himself  outmoded  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four  and  celebrated  the  discovery  by  collecting 
his  essays  in  a  slim,  red  volume  with  paper  label  and  uncut 
edges,  and  publishing  them  at  the  sign  of  The  Bodley  Head, 
in  1896,  vmder  the  title  of  The  Works  of  Max  Beerbohm. 
From  the  same  publishing  house  came  fascinating  volumes 
by  G.  S.  Street,  who  satirised  suburbans,  talked  charmingly 
of  books,  art  and  persons,  and  in  The  Autobiography  of  a  Boy 
revealed  the  irony  of  the  youth  who  wanted  to  be  himself, 
and  to  live  his  own  scarlet  life,  without  having  any  particular 
self  to  become  or  any  definite  life  to  live,  save  that  of  match- 
ing his  silk  dressing-gown  with  the  furniture  of  his  room. 
There  were  also  Charles  VVhibley,  who  wrote  able  studies  of 
scoundrels  and  dandies  ;  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  who  made  a 
fine  art  of  praise  and,  besides  reviving  the  picaresque  novel 
of  flirtation  in  The  Quest  of  the  Goldeii  Girl,  became  a  sort  of 
fin  de  siecle  Leigh  Hunt ;  John  Davidson,  who  wrote  the 
Fleet  Street  Eclogues  and  some  curiously  urbane  novels,  but 


42  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

who  was  more  poet  than  essayist,  and,  Jattej'ly,  wjis  so  much 
interested  in  ideas  that  he  became  a  philosopher  using  htcra- 
ture  as  his  medium ;  and  Arthur  Symons,  poet  of  the  music 
hall,  the  cafe  and  the  demi-monde,  literary  impressionist  of 
toMiis,  and  penetrating  critic  of  the  ^\Tite^s  and  ideas  of  the 
decadence  in  France  and  England. 

Another  gi'oup  of  writers  distinctly  associated  with  the 
period  received  its  inspiration  from  the  Celtic  revival.  Its 
chief  figure  was  William  Butler  Yeats,  the  Irish  poet  and 
dramatist,  whose  earliest  volumes  of  distinction.  The  Countess 
Kathleen  and  The  Celtic  Twilight,  were  published  in  1892  and 
1893.  \Vith  him  were  Dr  Douglas  Hyde,  George  Russell 
(A.E.),  John  Eglinton,  Lady  Gregory,  and  others,  who 
together  made  up  the  Irish  Literary  Movement  which 
eventually  established  the  Irish  National  Theatre  in  Abbey 
Street,  Dublin,  and  produced  the  greatest  of  modern  Irish 
dramatists,  John  Millington  Synge.  Wales  also  had  its 
movement,  with  Ernest  Rhys  as  its  chief  figure  ;  and  in 
Scotland  there  was  a  more  effective  revival,  which  clustered 
about  Professor  Patrick  Geddes  in  Edinburgh  and  produced 
four  numbers  of  a  handsome  quarterly  magazine,  called  TJie 
Evergreen,  in  1895,  among  its  contributors  being  both  "  Fiona 
Macleod  "  and  William  Sharp  (then  supposed  to  be  two 
separate  persons).  This  Scottish  movement  was  not  entirely 
artistic  in  aim,  but,  like  so  many  activities  of  the  Nineties,  it 
sought  to  link  art  and  ideas  with  life,  and  so  became  actually 
a  social  movement  with  a  Socialistic  tendency.  Next  to 
W.  B.  Yeats  the  most  prominent  figure  of  the  Celtic  revival 
was  Fiona  Macleod,  whose  first  book,  PJiarais,  A  Romance  of 
the  Isles,  appeared  in  1894.  There  was  also  another  Scottish 
movement,  very  widely  appreciated  on  this  side  of  the  border. 
It  was  called  the  "Kail  Yard  School,"  and  included  the 
popular  dialect  fiction  of  J.  M.  Barrie,  S.  R.  Crockett  and 
''Ian  Maclaren." 

The  importation  of  realism  from  France  began  in  the  pre- 
ceding decade,  with  translations  of  the  novels  of  Emile  Zola, 
for  which  the  translator  and  publisher,  Ernest  Vizetelly, 
suffered  imprisonment,  and  with  the  realistic  novels  of  (ieorge 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES     43 

Moore  during  the  same  period.  That  writer's  vivid  piece  of 
realism,  Esther  Waters  (1894),  made  history  also  by  being  the 
first  notable  novel  to  be  banned  by  the  libraries  and  placed 
on  the  Index  Expurgatorius  of  Messrs  W.  H.  Smith  &  Son. 
In  the  same  year  a  new  realist  arrived,  in  the  person  of 
Arthur  Morrison,  with  Tales  of  Mean  Streets,  Avhich  was 
followed  by  A  Child  of  the  J  ago,  in  1896.  These  striking 
sketches  of  slum  life  were  new  in  so  far  as  they  depicted  slum 
life  as  a  thing  in  itself  at  a  time  when  people  still  looked  upon 
the  slums,  much  as  they  had  done  in  the  time  of  Dickens,  as  a 
subject  for  romantic  philanthropy.  W.  Somerset  Maugham 
published  a  slum  novel,  Liza  of  Lambeth,  in  1897,  which  had 
some  considerable  vogue,  and  in  1899  Richard  Whiteing's 
No.  .7  John  Street  joined  the  same  class.  But  there  never 
could  be  more  than  a  passing  fancy  for  such  sectional  realism  ; 
slums  were  rapidly  becoming  the  affair  of  the  sociologist. 
Readers  of  books,  and  also  those  people  who  rarely  read 
books,  turned  to  the  more  stimulating  realism,  which  by  the 
way  was  not  free  of  romance,  of  Rudyard  Kipling,  who  had 
hitherto  appeared  in  the  blue-grey,  paper-backed  pamphlets 
issued,  for  Anglo-Indian  consumption,  by  Wheeler  of  Alla- 
habad. In  1890  their  growing  fame  forced  them  upon  the 
home  booksellers,  and  when  they  were  published  in  this 
country  they  aroused  so  great  an  interest  that  instead  of  re- 
maining curiosities  of  Anglo-Indian  publishing  they  became 
the  chief  modern  literature  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
There  were  realists,  too,  like  Cunninghame  Graham,  who 
savoured  also  of  the  new  romance,  whose  first  book  appeared 
in  1895,  and  in  the  same  year  Frank  Harris  published  his 
first  volume  of  short  stories,  Elder  Conklin  and  Other  Stories. 
But  neither  of  them  achieved  popularity.  Cold  also  was 
the  reception  given  to  the  personal  experience  of  poverty 
which  George  Gissing  put  into  his  novels  ;  although  The  Neio 
Grub  Street  (1891)  was  at  least  the  first  of  this  unfortunate 
author's  works  to  receive  anything  like  popular  recognition. 
I  have  pointed  out  more  than  once  that  the  renaissance  of 
the  Nineties  was  largely  social,  and  much  of  its  literature 
reveals  this   spirit.     There  were    many  \\Titers  who  made 


44  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

literature  of  their  social  zeal,  more  particularly  among  Social- 
ists. Some  of  the  realists,  indeed,  were  avowed  Socialists. 
Richard  Whiteing,  Cunninghame  Graham,  Frank  Harris  and 
Grant  Allen  were  all  of  that  faith.  George  Bernard  Shaw 
and  Robert  Blatchford  persistently  used  their  literary  skill 
in  the  propagation  of  social  theories,  and  only  less  directly 
was  the  same  thing  done  at  that  time  by  H.  G.  Wells,  who 
has  since  passed  through  a  phase  of  deliberate  Socialist  pro- 
paganda. George  Bernard  Shaw's  first  really  characteristic 
book.  The  Quintessence  of  Ibsenism,  appeared  in  1891,  his 
first  play.  Widowers^  Houses,  in  1892,  and  his  earliest  collected 
plays.  Plays  Pleasant  and  Unpleasant,  in  1898.  Throughout 
the  Nineties  he  was  a  busy  journalist,  criticising  music,  art, 
drama,  life,  an}i;hing  in  fact  that  anybody  would  print,  for 
he  had  views  to  express,  and  determination  to  express  them, 
on  all  phases  of  our  social  life. 

Robert  Blatchford  published  Merrie  England,  a  remark- 
able essay  in  Socialist  special  pleading,  written  for  the  man- 
in-the-street  in  a  strong,  simple  and  picturesque  manner. 
The  book  attracted  wide  notice,  and  did  much  towards 
consolidating  the  Socialist  movement  of  the  time.  Over  a 
million  copies  were  sold,  and  it  has  been  translated  into 
^Velsh,  Danish,  German,  Dutch,  Swedish,  French,  Spanish, 
Hebrew  and  Norwegian.  Edward  Carpenter  belongs  to  this 
class,  for  although  Towards  Democracij  was  published,  with 
several  of  his  other  books,  in  the  Eighties,  he  wrote  and 
lectured  much  during  the  Nineties.  He  was  also  one  of  the 
earliest  of  English  %\Titers  to  consider  problems  of  sex.  And 
finally,  Sidney  Webb,  the  social  historian  and  sociologist, 
published  his  first  works  in  the  late  Eighties  and  the  Nineties  : 
Socialism  in  England  (1889),  The  London  Programme  (1892) 
and  with  his  wife,  Beatrice  Webb,  The  History  of  Trades 
Unionism  and  Industrial  Democracy  in  1894.  and  1898.  The 
Nineties  also  saw  the  beginning  of  that  careful  sociological 
investigation  of  poverty  and  industrial  conditions  which  has 
been  the  basis  of  so  many  recent  reforms — the  monumental 
inquiry  of  Charles  Booth  into  the  conditions  of  the  labouring 
classes  of  London.     This  great  work  was  begun  in  1892  and 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      45 

finished   in   1903,  and   is   recorded   in   seventeen  volumes, 
entitled  The  Life  and  Labour  of  the  London  People. 

But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  most  remarkable  phase 
of  the  literary  movement  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  was  that 
which  found  expression  in  the  work  of  those  \\Titers  associ- 
ated with  the  high  journalism  of  The  Yellow  Book  and  The 
Savoy  :  poets,  essayists  and  storytellers  whose  books  were 
in  most  instances  published  either  by  Mr  John  Lane,  at  the 
Bodley  Head,  or  by  Mr  Elkin  Mathews,  both  of  whom  were 
established  in  Vigo  Street.  At  the  beginning  of  the  decade 
they  were  partners,  under  the  title  of  Elkin  Mathews  &  John 
Lane ;  but  the  partnership  was  dissolved,  and  afterwards  the 
partners  carried  on  separate  businesses  almost  opposite  each 
other  in  the  same  street.  Other  pubHshers  associated  with 
the  new  Uterary  movement  ,vere  Henry  &  Co.,  Laurence  & 
Bullen  and,  more  intimately,  Leonard  Smithers,  himself  a 
decadent  and  the  friend  and  associate  of  many  of  the  leaders 
of  the  group.  Nearer  the  new  century  the  Unicorn  Press 
continued  some  of  the  traditions  of  the  early  Nineties,  when 
the  other  publishers  of  the  movement  had  become  normal. 
These  last-named  publishers,  as  in  the  case  of  so  many  of  the 
British  decadents,  passed  away  with  the  Nineties  or  there- 
abouts, ISli  William  Heinemann  was  a  notable  publisher  of 
the  period  and  in  sympathy  with  the  younger  generation  ; 
so  was  Mr  Fisher  Unwin,  who  showed  his  modernism  by 
advertising  his  books  by  means  of  posters  designed  by  Aubrey 
Beardsley  ;  and  Mr  Grant  Richards  issued  several  important 
works  of  the  time,  notably  Bernard  Shaw's  Plays  Pleasant 
and  Unpleasant,  and  A.  E.  Housman's  A  Shropshire  Lad, 
The  lists  of  any  of  these  publishers  issued  during  the  decade 
prove  interesting  reading  even  to-day,  and  they  reveal  some- 
times a  type  of  publisher  as^in  de  siecle  as  their  literary  wares. 
No  one  will  deny,  however,  that  The  Bodley  Head  was  the 
chief  home  of  the  new  movement,  for  not  only  did  The  Yellow 
Book  issue  from  that  house,  but  books  by  Oscar  ^Vilde,  John 
Davidson,  Francis  Thompson,  Max  Beerbolim,  Richard  Le 
Gallienne,  George  Egerton,  Laurence  Binyon,  Michael  Field, 
Norman  Gale,   Kemieth  Grahame,   Lionel  Johnson,   Alice 


46  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Meynell,  William  Watson,  and  G.  S.  Street.  Leonard 
Sniithci's  made  a  unique  place  for  himself  as  a  fin  dc  Steele 
publisher,  and  when  The  Savoij  (1896)  was  published  by  him 
he  stood  courageously  for  the  ideas  and  art  of  the  decadence 
at  its  darkest  hour.  With  the  passing  of  that  excellent  but 
short-lived  quarterly  the  decadence  in  England  may  be  said 
to  have  passed  away. 

The  list  of  contributors  to  those  two  periodicals  constitute 
practically  the  dramatis  personam  of  the  movement — with  the 
notable  exception  of  Oscar  Wilde,  not  any  of  whose  work 
appeared  in  either.     The  Yellozv  Book  had  Henry  Harland 
for  literary  editor,  and  for  art  editor,  Aubrey  Beardsley.     Its 
iirst  four  numbers  (1894-1895)  al'ford  us  a  clear  and  compre- 
hensive view  of  the  literar}^  movement  of  the  Nineties  ;   but 
after  the  withdrawal  of  Aubrey  Beardsley,  who  transferred 
his  work  to  The  Savoy  in  January  1896,  the  policy  of  The 
Yellow  Book  seemed  to  change,  and  this  change  proceeded 
always  more  away  from  the  characteristics  of  the  early  da\'s, 
and,  save  for  its  yellow  covers.  The  Yellow  Book  eventually 
was  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  any  high-class  magazine 
in  book  form.     The  first  numbei  was  in  the  nature  of  a  bomb- 
shell thrown  into  the  world  of  letters.     It  had  not  hitherto 
occm-red  to  a  publisher  to  give  a  periodical  the  dignity  of 
book  form ;    and,  although  literature  had  before  then  been 
treated  as  joiu-nahsm,  it  was  quite  a  new  thing  in  this  country 
for  a  group  of  lesser-known  writers  and  artists  to  be  glorified 
in  the  regal  format  of  a  five-shilling  quarterly.     But  the 
experiment  was  a  success  even  in  the  commercial  sense,  a 
circumstance  aided  no  doubt  by  its  flaming  cover  of  yellow, 
out  of  which  the  Aubrey  Beardsley  woman  smirked  at  the 
public  for  the  first  time.     Nothing  like  The  Yellow  Book  had 
been  seen  before.     It  was  newness  in  excelsis  :  novelty  naked 
and  unashamed.     People  were  puzzled   and   shocked  and 
delighted,  and  yellow  became  the  colour  of  the  hour,  the 
symbol  of  the  time-spirit.     It  was  associated  with  all  that 
was  bizarre  and  queer  in  art  and  life,  with  all  that  was  out- 
rageously  modern.     Richard   Le   Gallienne   WTote  a  prose 
fancy  on  "The  Boom  in  Yellow,"  in  which  he  pointed  out 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      47 

many  applications  of  the  colour  with  that  Jin  de  siecle  flip- 
pancy which  was  one  of  his  characteristics,  without,  however, 
tracing  the  decorative  use  of  yellow  to  Whistler,  as  he  should 
have  done.  Nevertheless  his  essay  recalls  very  amusingly 
the  fashion  of  the  moment.  "Bill-posters,"  he  says,  "are 
beginning  to  discover  the  attractive  qualities  of  the  colour. 
Who  can  ever  forget  meeting  for  the  first  time  upon  a  hoard- 
ing Mr  Dudley  Hardy's  wonderful  Yellow  Girl,  the  pretty 
advance-guard  of  To-Day  ?  But  I  suppose  the  honour  of 
the  discovery  of  the  colour  for  advertising  purposes  rests 
with  Mr  Colman ;  though  its  recent  boom  comes  from 
publishers,  and  particularly  from  The  Bodley  Head.  Tlie 
Yellow  Book  with  any  other  colour  would  hardly  have  sold 
as  well — ^the  first  private  edition  of  Mr  Arthur  Benson's 
poems,  by  the  way,  came  caparisoned  in  yellow,  and  with 
the  identical  name,  Le  Cahier  Jaune  ;  and  no  doubt  it  was 
largely  its  title  that  made  the  success  of  The  Yelloiv  Aster." 

The  first  number  of  The  Yellow  Book,  published  in  April 
1894,  contained  contributions  by  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  Max 
Beerbohm,  Ella  D'Arcy,  Arthur  Symons,  Henry  Harland, 
George  Egerton,  Hubert  Crackenthorpe,  John  Davidson, 
John  Oliver  Hobbes  and  George  Moore,  all  of  whom  were  in 
the  vanguard  of  the  new  movement,  and  among  the  newer 
artists,  besides  Aubrey  Beardsley,  who  contributed  four  full 
drawings,  the  cover  decorations  and  title-page,  there  were 
Walter  Sickert,  Joseph  Pennell,  Laurence  Housman,  Will 
Rothenstein,  and  R.  Anning  Bell.  But  although  The  Yellow 
Book  was  mainly  fill  de  siecle  it  was  not  exclusi\'ely  so,  for  it 
included  contributions  by  Henry  James,  Arthur  Christopher 
Benson,  William  Watson,  Arthur  ^Vaugh,  Richard  Garnett 
and  Edmund  Gosse,  and  illustrations  by  J.  T.  Nettleship  and 
Charles  W.  Furse,  and,  above  all,  as  though  to  reassure  its 
readers  and  the  British  public  after  the  Beardsley  cover,  and 
certain  contents  to  match,  and  to  assert  its  fundamental 
respectability,  it  contained  a  frontispiece  by  Sir  Frederick 
Leighton,  P.R.A.  Volume  H.  had  Norman  Gale,  Alfred 
Hayes,  Dolly  Radford  and  Kenneth  Grahame  among  its  new 
contributors,  and  P.    Wilson   Steer,   E.  J.   Sullivan,  A.   S. 


48  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Hartrick  and  Walter  Crane  among  its  illustrators.  Volume  111. 
was  more  modern  than  Volume  II.,  for  in  addition  to  many 
of  the  younger  generation  who  contributed  to  the  earlier 
volumes  it  introduced  into  its  company  Ernest  Dowson, 
Lionel  Johnson,  Olive  Custance,  Theodore  Wratislaw  and 
Charles  Dalmon,  whilst  Max  Beerbohm  was  represented 
among  the  illustrators  by  his  caricature  of  George  IV.  The 
most  notable  addition  to  the  contributors  of  Volume  IV.  was 
Charles  Conder,  who  sent  a  design  for  a  fan  ;  and  Volume  V. 
is  interesting  as  it  contains  an  article  by  G.  S.  Street,  the  first 
English  essay  on  Anatole  France,  by  the  Hon.  Maurice 
Baring,  and  the  first  article  by  that  distinguished  French 
WTiter  and  savant  ever  published  in  England. 

In  spite,  however,  of  its  novelty,  and  the  excellence  of  the 
contents  of  its  early  numbers,  The  Yellow  Book  was  always 
inclined  not  only  to  compromise  in  matters  of  editorial  policy, 
but  its  contents  were  not  always  chosen  according  to  the 
high  standard  such  a  work  demanded,  and  this  became  more 
pronounced  after  the  retirement  of  Beardsley.  The  Savoy 
pursued  a  different  policy.  Edited  by  Arthur  Symons,  it 
stood  boldly  for  the  modern  note  without  fear  and  without 
any  wavering  of  purpose.  Hence  it  represents  the  most 
ambitious  and,  if  not  the  most  comprehensive,  the  most 
satisfying  achievement  of  fin  de  siecle  journalism  in  this 
country.  Such  a  result  was  inevitable  with  an  editor  of  rare 
critical  genius  and  one  who  had  been  profoundly  influenced 
by  the  French  decadents.  If  his  choice  was  not  always 
decadent  it  was  always  modern,  even  when  it  selected  a 
drawing  of  a  distant  time.  This  can  be  seen  also  among  the 
literary  contributors  to  The  Savoy,  among  whom  were  Arthur 
Symons,  W.  B.  Yeats,  Theodore  Wratislaw,  Ernest  Rhys, 
Fiona  Macleod,  George  Moore,  Edward  Carpenter,  Ford 
Madox  Hueffer  and  Lionel  Johnson.  All  are  fin  de  siecle 
writers,  though  differing  in  type  and  aim,  and  such  writers 
could  hardly  do  otherwise  than  give  the  periodical  a  decidedly 
modern  expression,  in  spite  of  a  challenging  Editorial  Note 
prefaced  to  No.  1  (dictated,  it  would  seem,  by  dissatisfaction 
with  the  uneven  editing,  fin  de  siecle  pose  with  apparent 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      49 

readiness  to  compromise  of  The  Yellow  Book),  which   dis- 
avowed a  definite  modernist  intent : 

"It  is  hoped  that  The  Savoy  will  be  a  periodical  of  an 
exclusively  literary  and  artistic  kind.  To  present  Literature 
in  the  shape  of  its  letterpress,  Art  in  the  form  of  its  illustra- 
tions, will  be  its  aim.  For  the  attainment  of  that  aim  we 
can  but  rely  on  our  best  endeavours  and  on  the  logic  of  our 
belief  that  good  writers  and  artists  will  care  to  see  their  work 
in  company  with  the  work  of  good  wTiters  and  artists. 
Readers  who  look  to  a  new  periodical  for  only  very  well- 
known  or  only  very  obscure  names  must  permit  themselves 
to  be  disappointed.  We  have  no  objection  to  a  celebrity 
who  deserves  to  be  celebrated,  or  to  an  unknown  person  who 
has  not  been  seen  often  enough  to  be  recognised  in  passing. 
All  we  ask  from  our  contributors  is  good  work,  and  good  work 
is  all  we  offer  our  readers.  This  we  offer  with  some  confi- 
dence. We  have  no  formulas,  and  we  desire  no  false  unity 
of  form  or  matter.  We  have  not  invented  a  new  point  of 
view.  We  are  not  Realists,  or  Romanticists,  or  Decadents. 
For  us,  all  art  is  good  which  is  good  art.  We  hope  to  appeal 
to  the  tastes  of  the  intelligent  by  not  being  original  for 
originality's  sake,  or  audacious  for  the  sake  of  advertisement, 
or  timid  for  the  convenience  of  the  elderly-minded.  We 
intend  to  print  no  verse  which  has  not  some  close  relationship 
with  poetry,  no  fiction  which  has  not  a  certain  sense  of  what 
is  finest  in  living  fact,  no  criticism  which  has  not  some  know- 
ledge, discernment  and  sincerity  in  its  judgment.  We  could 
scarcely  say  more,  and  we  are  content  to  think  we  can 
scarcely  say  less." 

The  Savoy  lived  for  twelve  months,  and  during  that  time  it 
went  far  towards  realising  its  editor's  ideal.  It  did  realise 
that  ideal  to  the  extent  of  not  admitting  anjrthing  to  its  pages 
which  could  not  be  recommended  alone  on  artistic  grounds, 
and  it  never  for  a  moment  stepped  beneath  its  high  intent 
for  the  sake  of  financial  gain  or  any  of  the  other  snares  and 
pitfalls  of  even  well-meaning  editors.     Among  contributors 


50  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

who  were  modern  without  being  decadent  were  Bernard 
Shaw,  who  is  represented  in  the  first  number  by  his  most 
essay-hke  essay,  "On  Going  to  Church  ";  Havelock  Elhs, 
who  contributed  one  of  the  earhest  articles  in  Enghsh  on 
Friedrich  Nietzsche  ;  Frederick  Wedmore,  Edmund  Gosse, 
Sehvyn  Image,  Mathilde  Bhnd  and  Joseph  Conrad.  Besides 
these  The  Savoy  contained  translations  from  Paul  Verlaine, 
Emil  Verhaeren  and  Cesare  Lombroso.  The  illustrations 
were  always  modern,  and  always  distinguished,  and  included, 
in  addition  to  the  last  and,  in  many  instances,  best  of  Aubrey 
Beardsley's  drawings,  examples  of  the  work  of  Charles 
Conder,  Will  Rothenstein,  C.  H.  Shannon,  Max  Beerbohm, 
Joseph  Pennell,  William  T.  Horton,  Walter  Sickert  and  Phil 
May.  It  also  reveals  Aubrey  Beardsley  as  a  writer  in  both 
prose  and  poetry,  the  former  taking  the  shape  of  his  aggres- 
sively modern  romance,  Under  the  Hill.  The  Savoy  was 
admittedly  an  art-for-art's-sake  publication,  and  its  failure 
in  twelve  months  through  lack  of  support  proves  that  there 
was  at  the  time  no  public  for  such  a  publication,  even  though 
the  half-a-crown  charged  for  each  issue  was  not  only  half  the 
price  of  The  Yellow  Book,  but  well  within  the  reach  of  a  fairly 
numerous  cultured  class.  That  class  proved  unequal  to  the 
demand  of  a  decadent  periodical  of  a  fine  type.  Neither  did 
the  fact  of  a  number  being  banned  by  INIessrs  ^V.  H.  Smith  & 
Son,  because  it  contained  a  reproduction  of  one  of  William 
Blake's  pictures,  have  any  appreciable  effect  on  its  circula- 
tion ;  and,  finally,  funds  reached  so  low  an  ebb  that  Arthur 
Symons  was  forced  to  write  the  whole  of  the  last  number 
himself,  and  in  his  epilogue  to  his  readers  on  the  last  page  of 
that  number  he  confessed  to  the  pessimistic  belief  that  "  Com- 
paratively few  people  care  for  art  at  all,  and  most  of  these 
care  for  it  because  they  mistake  it  for  something  else,"  which 
in  a  way  is  true,  but  not  necessarily  unwise  on  the  part  of  the 
majority,  for  art,  as  the  Nineties  were  beginning  to  learn,  was 
less  important  than  life.  But  that  does  not  invalidate  the 
excellence  of  The  Savoy. 

A  final  attempt  was  made  to  produce  a  good  periodical  by 
the  publication  of  The  Dome,  described  as  "A  Quarterly 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      51 

containing  examples  of  all  the  Arts,"  at  the  price  of  one 
shilling,  in  1898,  two  years  after  the  death  of  The  Savoy. 
But  this  quarterly  never  attempted  to  do  more  than  repre- 
sent the  various  arts  ;  it  had  no  guiding  theory  save  excel- 
lence, with  the  result  that  it  was  less  definite  than  either  of  its 
forerunners.  It  admitted  good  work  of  the  past  as  well  as 
the  present,  and  reprinted  many  fine  examples  of  ancient 
and  modern  wood- engraving.  Notable  among  its  modern 
illustrators  were  Gordon  Craig  and  Althea  Giles  ;  and  among 
its  writers,  Lam-ence  Binyon,  W.  B.  Yeats,  C.  J.  Holmes, 
Laurence  Housman,  T.  W.  H.  Crosland,  Stephen  Phillips, 
Fiona  Macleod,  John  F.  Runciman,  T.  Sturge  Moore,  Francis 
Thompson,  Wilfrid  Wilson  Gibson,  Gordon  Bottomley, 
Arthur  Symons,  Roger  Fry,  "Israfel,"  and  there  was  also 
a  translation  of  one  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck's  earliest  stories. 
The  Massao'e  of  the  Innocents. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  that  the  art  movement 
of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  found  one  of  its  most  characteristic 
expressions  in  belles  lettres.  It  was  largely  a  literary  renais- 
sance, exemplifying  itself  in  poetry,  drama,  fiction  and  the 
essay.  Books  became  once  again  respected  for  their  own 
sakes  ;  publishers,  led  by  John  Lane,  Elkin  Mathews  and, 
later,  by  J.  M.  Dent,  competed  as  much  in  beauty  and  dainti- 
ness of  production  as  in  names  and  contents,  and  this  book- 
ish reverence  reached  its  highest  expression  in  a  veritable 
apotheosis  of  the  book  at  the  hands  of  William  Morris  of  the 
Kelniscott  Press  and  Hacon  &  Ricketts  of  the  Vale  Press. 
But  this  branch  of  the  fine  arts,  although  still  remote  from 
the  average  national  life,  was  no  longer  remote  in  the  old 
sense  ;  it  did  not  desire  academic  honours,  and  those  who 
promoted  the  renaissance  had  no  idea  of  establishing  a  corner 
in  culture.  An  air  of  freedom  surrounded  the  movement ; 
old  ideals  were  not  the  only  things  that  suffered  at  the  hands 
of  the  iconoclasts,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  old  barriers  and 
boundaries  were  broken  down  and  pitched  aside  ;  a  new 
right-of-way  was  proclaimed,  and  invitations  to  take  to  it 
were  scattered  broadcast.  It  was  not  entirely  a  democratic 
movement,  however,  and  in  some  of  its  more  intense  moments 


52  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

it  was  not  at  all  democratic.  What  really  happened  in  the 
Nineties  was  that  doors  were  thrown  open  and  people  might 
enter  and  pass  through  into  whatever  lay  beyond  if  they 
would  or  could,  and  whether  they  were  invited  or  not.  To 
that  extent  the  period  was  democratic.  Such  an  attitude 
was  a  more  or  less  intuitive  recognition  of  a  very  obvious 
awakening  of  intelligence  which  represented  the  first  mental 
crop  of  the  movement  towards  popular  education.  The 
Board  Schools  were  bearing  fruit ;  Secondary  Education 
and  University  Extension  culture  were  producing  a  new 
inquisitiveness.  Ibsen's  younger  generation  was  knocking 
at  the  door.  The  growing  demand  for  culture  was  partially 
satisfied,  in  the  case  of  those  who  could  expect  no  further  aid 
from  the  educational  system,  by  popular  reprints  of  the 
classics,  as  could  be  seen  by  the  ever-growing  demand  for 
the  volumes  of  The  Scott  Library ^  The  Canterbury  Poets  and 
The  Temple  Classics.  The  mental  and  imaginative  stimulus 
thus  obtained  created  a  hunger  in  many  for  still  newer 
sensations,  and  many  of  these  passed  through  the  doors 
of  the  decadents  or  the  realists  into  stranger  realms.  The 
remainder,  unable  to  appreciate  the  bizarre  atmosphere  of 
The  Yellow  Book,  turned  with  avidity  to  the  new  romantic 
literature  of  the  Yellow  Press. 

The  Eighteen  Nineties  were  to  no  small  extent  the  battle- 
ground of  these  two  types  of  culture — the  one  represented  by 
The  Yellow  Book,  the  other  by  the  Yellow  Press.  The  one 
was  unique,  individual,  a  little  weird,  often  exotic,  demand- 
ing the  right  to  be — in  its  own  way  even  to  waywardness  ; 
but  this  was  really  an  abnormal  minority,  and  in  no  sense 
national.  The  other  was  broad,  general  popular  ;  it  was 
the  majority,  the  man-in- the-street  awaiting  a  new  medium 
of  expression.  In  the  great  fight  the  latter  won.  The  Yellow 
Book,  with  all  its  "  new  "  hopes  and  hectic  aspirations,  has 
passed  away,  and  The  Daily  Mail,  established  two  years 
later,  flourishes.  In  a  deeper  sense,  also,  these  two  publica- 
tions represent  the  two  phases  of  the  times.  The  character- 
istic excitability  and  hunger  for  sensation  are  exemplified  in 
the  one  as  much  as  the  other,  for  what  after  all  was  the 


PERSONALITIES  AND  TENDENCIES      53 

"brilliance"  of  Vigo  Street  but  the  "sensationalism"  of 
Fleet  Street  seen  from  the  cultured  side  ?  Both  were  the 
outcome  of  a  society  which  had  absorbed  a  bigger  idea  of 
life  than  it  knew  how  to  put  into  practice,  and  it  is  not 
surprising  to  those  who  look  back  upon  the  period  to 
find  that  both  tendencies,  in  so  far  as  they  were  divorced 
from  the  social  revolution  of  the  Nineties,  were  nihilistic, 
the  one  finding  its  Moscow  at  the  Old  Bailey,  in  1895,  the 
other  in  South  Africa,  in  1899. 

I  use  both  terms  and  dates  symbolically,  for  I  am  neither 
blind  to  the  element  of  injustice  in  the  condemnation  of 
Oscar  Wilde  nor  to  the  soul  of  goodness  in  the  South  African 
War.  But  at  the  moment  I  am  dealing  with  main  tendencies, 
and  trying  to  give  an  idea-picture  of  a  period,  which  was  self- 
contained  even  in  its  disasters.  The  first  half  was  remark- 
able for  a  literary  and  artistic  renaissance,  degenerating  into 
decadence  ;  the  second  for  a  new  sense  of  patriotism  de- 
generating into  jingoism.  The  former  was  in  the  ascendant 
during  the  first  five  years.  In  1895  the  literary  outlook  in 
England  had  never  been  brighter  ;  an  engaging  and  promis- 
ing novelty  full  of  high  vitality  pervaded  the  Press  and  the 
publishers'  lists,  and  it  was  even  commencing  to  invade  the 
stage,  when  with  the  arrest  of  Oscar  Wilde  the  whole  renais- 
sance suffered  a  sudden  collapse  as  if  it  had  been  no  more 
than  a  gaily  coloured  balloon.  "  The  crash  of  the  fall 
certainly  affected  the  whole  spirit  of  this  year,"  says 
R.  H.  Gretton,  in  his  Modern  History  of  the  English  People. 
"  There  were  few  great  houses  in  London  where  he  was  not 
known  ;  fewer  still  where  there  was  not  among  the  younger 
generation  an  aggressive,  irresponsible  intolerance  which  had 
some  relation,  however  vague,  to  his  brilliant  figure.  Even 
athleticism  rejoiced  at  this  date  to  dissociate  itself  from  any- 
thing that  might  have  been  in  danger  of  easy  approval  from 
an  older  generation,  by  being  too  aesthetic  ;  captains  of 
university  football  teams  had  been  seen  with  long  hair. 
There  was  too  much  of  real  revolt  in  the  movement  to  allow 
the  fate  of  one  man  to  hold  it  lastingly  in  check  ;  but  a 
certain  silence,  almost,  if  not  quite,  shamefaced,  settled  for 


54  THE  ETCTITEEN  NINETTES 

the  moment  on  much  of  the  social  Hfc  of  the  country."  Two 
of  Oscar  Wilde's  plays  were  being  performed  at  the  time,  and 
they  were  inmiediately  suppressed.  Outside  of  the  smoking- 
room  that  writer's  name  was  scarcely  whispered  ;  it  was 
suppressed  entirely  in  the  newspapers.  His  books  were 
allowed  to  go  out  of  print,  and  unauthorised  publishers 
pirated  them,  and  were  allowed  for  a  time  to  thrive  upon 
the  succes  de  scandale  attained  by  the  books  because  of  the 
misfortune  of  their  author. 

With  the  arresting  of  the  art  movement  of  the  Nineties 
came  the  chance  of  the  man-in-the-street,  whose  new  in- 
tellectual needs  found  a  new  caterer  in  Alfred  Harmsworth. 
The  political  prejudices  of  the  average  man  and  his  need  for 
romance  by  proxy  were  exploited  with  phenomenal  success 
by  the  audacious  genius  of  the  great  newspaper  adminis- 
trator who  has  since  won  a  world-wide  reputation  as  Lord 
Northcliffe.  The  Daily  Mail  openly  fanned  the  Jingo  flame, 
already  beginning  to  leap  aloft  under  the  inspiration  of 
Joseph  Chamberlain  and  Cecil  Rhodes,  and  the  melodram- 
atic Jameson  Raid  of  December  1895.  Then  came  the 
Jubilee  of  1897,  when  pride  of  race  reached  so  unseemly  a 
pitch  that  Rudyard  Kipling  even,  the  acknowledged  poet  of 
Imperialism,  as  the  new  patriotism  was  called,  was  moved  to 
rebuke  his  compatriots  : 

"  //,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe, 
Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use. 
Of  lesser  breeds  ivithout  the  Law. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  ivith  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget  !  " 

But  there  w^as  no  turning  back.  Bitten  by  an  unseeing 
pride,  expressing  itself  in  a  strangely  inorganic  patriotism, 
the  nation  forgot  art  and  letters  and  social  regeneration,  in 
the  indulgence  of  blatant  aspirations  which  reached  their 
apotheosis  in  the  orgy  of  Mafeking  Night. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE    DECADENCE 


NO  English  Avriter  has  a  better  claim  to  recognition  as 
an  interpreter  of  the  decadence  in  recent  English 
literature  than  Arthur  Symons.  He  of  all  the  critics 
in  the  Eighteen  Nineties  was  sufficiently  intimate  with  the 
modern  movement  to  hold,  and  sufficiently  removed  from  it 
in  his  later  attitude  to  express,  an  opinion  which  should  be 
at  once  sympathetic  and  reasonably  balanced  without  pre- 
tending to  colourless  impartiality.  But  during  the  earlier 
phase  his  vision  of  the  decadent  idea  was  certainly  clearer 
than  it  was  some  years  later,  when  he  strove  to  differentiate 
decadence  and  sjTiibolism. 

"  The  most  representative  literature  of  the  day,"  he  "WTote 
in  1893,  "the  ^VTiting  which  appeals  to,  which  has  done  so 
much  to  form,  the  younger  generation,  is  certainly  not  classic, 
nor  has  it  any  relation  to  that  old  antithesis  of  the  classic, 
the  romantic.  After  a  fashion  it  is  no  doubt  a  decadence ; 
it  has  all  the  qualities  that  mark  the  end  of  great  periods,  the 
qualities  that  we  find  in  the  Greek,  the  Latin,  decadence  ; 
an  intense  self-consciousness,  a  restless  curiosity  in  research, 
an  over-subtilising  refinement  upon  refinement,  a  spiritual 
and  moral  perversity.  If  what  we  call  the  classic  is  indeed 
the  supreme  art — those  qualities  of  perfect  simplicity,  perfect 
sanity,  perfect  proportion,  the  supreme  qualities — ^then  this 
representative  literature  of  to-day,  interesting,  beautiful, 
novel  as  it  is,  is  really  a  new  and  beautiful  and  interesting 
disease,"  ^ 

Six  years  later  Arthur  Symons,  like  so  many  of  the  \NTiters 
of  the  period,  was  beginning  to  turn  his  eyes  from  the  "  new 

*  "  The  Decadent  Movement  in  Literature."  By  Arthur  Symons. 
Harper's  New  MontMy  Magazine,  November  1893. 

55 


56  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

and  beautiful  and  interesting  disease,"  and  to  look  inwardly 
for  spiritual  consolation.  In  the  "  Dedication  "  to  The 
Sijmholist  Movement  in  Literature  he  told  W.  B.  Yeats  that 
he  was  "  uncertainly  but  inevitably  "  finding  his  way  towards 
that  mystical  acceptation  of  reality  which  had  always  been 
the  attitude  of  the  Irish  poet.  And  further  on  in  the  same 
book,  as  though  forgetting  the  very  definite  interpretation  of 
decadence  given  by  him  in  the  article  of  1893,  he  writes  of  it 
as  "'  something  which  is  vaguely  called  Decadence,"  a  term, 
he  said,  used  as  a  reproach  or  a  defiance  : 

"  It  pleased  some  young  men  in  various  countries  to  call 
themselves  Decadents,  with  all  the  thrill  of  unsatisfied  virtue 
masquerading  as  uncomprehended  vice.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  term  is  in  its  place  only  when  applied  to  style,  to 
that  ingenious  deformation  of  the  language,  in  Mallarme,  for 
instance,  which  can  be  compared  with  what  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  call  the  Greek  and  Latin  of  the  Decadence.  No 
doubt  perversity  of  form  and  perversity  of  matter  are  often 
found  together,  and,  among  the  lesser  men  especially,  experi- 
ment was  carried  far,  not  only  in  the  direction  of  style.  But 
a  movement  which  in  this  sense  might  be  called  Decadent 
could  but  have  been  a  straying  aside  from  the  main  road 
of  literature.  .  .  .  The  interlude,  half  a  mock-interlude,  of 
Decadence,  diverted  the  attention  of  the  critics  while  some- 
thing more  serious  was  in  preparation.  That  something 
more  serious  has  crystallised,  for  the  time,  under  the  form  of 
Symbolism,  in  which  art  returns  to  the  one  pathway,  leading 
through  beautiful  things  to  the  eternal  beauty." 

In  the  earlier  essay  he  certainly  saw  more  in  decadence  than 
mere  novelty  of  style,  and  rightly  so,  for  style  can  no  more 
be  separated  from  idea  than  from  personality.  The  truth  of 
the  matter,  however,  lies  probably  between  the  two  views. 
What  was  really  decadent  in  the  Eighteen  Nineties  did  seem 
to  weed  itself  out  into  mere  tricks  of  style  and  idiosyncrasies 
of  sensation  ;  and  whilst  doing  so  it  was  pleased  to  adopt  the 
term  decadence,  originally  used  as  a  term  of  reproach,  as  a 


THE  DECADENCE  57 

badge.  But  with  the  passing  of  time  the  term  has  come  to 
stand  for  a  definite  phase  of  artistic  consciousness,  and  that 
phase  is  precisely  what  Arthur  Symons  described  it  to  be  in 
his  earher  article,  an  endeavour  "to  fix  the  last  fine  shade, 
the  quintessence  of  things  ;  to  fix  it  fleetingly  ;  to  be  a  dis- 
embodied voice,  and  yet  the  voice  of  a  human  soul ;  that  is 
the  ideal  of  Decadence." 

The  decadent  movement  in  English  art  was  the  final  out- 
come of  the  romantic  movement  which  began  near  the  dawn 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  the  mortal  ripening  of 
that  flower  which  blossomed  upon  the  ruins  of  the  French 
Revolution,  heralding  not  only  the  rights  of  man,  which  was 
an  abstraction  savouring  more  of  the  classic  ideal,  but  the 
rights  of  personality,  of  unique,  varied  and  varying  men. 
The  French  romanticists,  led  by  Victor  Hugo,  recognised 
this  in  their  glorification  of  Napoleon  ;  but  fear  and  hatred 
of  the  great  Emperor  generated  in  the  hearts  of  the  ruling 
classes  in  this  country  and  propagated  among  the  people 
prevented  the  idea  from  gaining  acceptance  here.  At  the 
same  time  decadence  was  neither  romantic  nor  classic  ;  its 
existence  in  so  far  as  it  was  dependent  upon  either  of  those 
art  traditions  was  dependent  upon  both.  The  decadents 
were  romantic  in  their  antagonism  to  current  forms,  but  thej'^ 
were  classic  in  their  insistence  upon  new.  And  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  far  from  being  nihilistic  in  aim  they  always 
clung,  at  times  with  desperation,  to  one  already  established 
art-form  or  another.  The  French  artists  of  the  first  revolu- 
tionary period  depended  as  much  upon  the  traditions  of  re- 
pubUcan  Greece  and  Rome  as  those  of  the  revolution  of  July, 
and  the  poets  of  Britain,  led  by  Walter  Scott  and  Byron, 
depended  upon  the  traditions  of  mediaeval  feudalism. 
Romanticism  was  a  reshuffiing  of  ideals  and  ideas  and  a  re- 
creation of  forms  ;  it  was  renascent  and  novel.  It  could  be 
both  degenerate  and  regenerate,  and  contain  at  the  same 
time  many  more  contradictions,  because  at  bottom  it  was 
a  revolt  of  the  spirit  against  formal  subservience  to  mere 
reason.  It  is  true  that  there  is  ultimately  an  explanation 
for  all  things,  a  reason  for  everything,  but  it  was  left  for 


58  THE  EIGTTTEEN  NINETTES 

romance  to  discover  a  reason  for  unreason.  It  was  the 
romantic  spirit  in  the  art  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  which  saw  no 
inconsistency  between  the  folk-soul  and  the  ideals  of  chivalry 
and  nobility  ;  that  taught  Wordsworth  to  reveal  simplicity 
as,  in  Oscar  Wilde's  words,  "  the  last  refuge  of  complexity  "  ; 
that  inspired  John  Keats  with  a  new  classicism  in  Endymion 
brighter  than  anything  since  A  Midsummer  NighVs  Dream, 
and  Comus,  and  a  new  medisevalism  in  The  Eve  of  St  Agnes 
fairer  than  "all  Ohmipus'  faded  hierarchy."  It  taught 
Shelley  that  the  most  strenuous  and  the  most  exalted  indi- 
vidual emphasis  was  not  necessarily  antagonistic  to  a  balanced 
commimal  feeling,  and  that  the  heart  of  Dionysos  could  throb 
and  burn  in  the  form  of  Apollo  ;  and  above  all  it  taught 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  that  mystery  lurked  in  common 
things  and  that  mysticism  was  not  merely  a  cloistral  property. 
Though  all  of  these  tendencies  of  thought  and  expression 
went  to  the  making  of  the  decadence  in  England,  the  influ- 
ence, with  the  exception  of  that  of  Keats,  was  indirect  and 
foreign.  In  that  it  was  native  the  impulsion  came  directly 
from  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  and  more  particularly^  from  the 
poetry  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and  Swinburne.  But  the 
chief  influences  came  from  France,  and  partially  for  that 
reason  the  English  decadents  always  remained  spiritual 
foreigners  in  our  midst ;  they  were  not  a  product  of  England 
but  of  cosmopolitan  London.  It  is  certain  Oscar  Wilde 
(hounded  out  of  England  to  die  in  Paris),  Aubrey  Beardsley 
(admittedly  more  at  home  in  the  h-asserie  of  the  Cafe  Royale 
than  elsewhere  in  London)  and  Ernest  Dowson  (who  spent 
so  much  of  his  time  in  Soho)  would  each  have  felt  more  at 
home  in  Paris  or  Dieppe  than,  say,  in  Leeds  or  Margate. 
The  modern  decadence  in  England  was  an  echo  of  the  French 
movement  which  began  with  Theophile  Gautier  (who  was 
really  the  bridge  between  the  romanticists  of  the  Victor  Hugo 
school  and  the  decadents  who  received  their  inspiration 
from  Edmond  and  Jules  de  Goncourt),  Paul  Verlaine  and 
Joris  Karl  Huysmans.  In  short,  Gautier,  favourite  disciple 
of  Victor  Hugo,  represented  the  consummation  of  the  old 
romanticism,   and   he  did  this  by  inaugurating  that   new 


THE  DECADENCE  59 

romanticism,  which  had  for  apostles  the  Parnassiens,  Sym- 
bolists and  Decadents.  French  romanticism  begins  with 
Hernani,  and  ends  with  Mademoiselle  de  Maujnn.  Decad- 
ence properly  begins  with  Mademoiselle  de  Maujnn  and 
closes  with  A  Rebours.  In  England  it  began  by  accident 
with  Walter  Pater's  Studies  in  Art  and  Poetry,  The  Renais- 
sance, which  was  not  entirely  decadent,  and  it  ended  with 
Oscar  Wilde's  Picture  of  Dorian  Gray  and  Aubrey  Beardsley's 
romance.  Under  the  Hill,  which  were  nothing  if  not  decadent. 
The  accident  by  which  Pater  became  a  decadent  influence 
in  English  literature  was  due  to  a  misapprehension  of  the 
precise  meaning  of  the  famous  "  Conclusion  "  to  the  first 
edition  of  the  volume  originally  issued  in  1873,  which  led  the 
author  to  omit  the  chapter  from  the  second  edition  (1877). 
"  I  conceived  it  might  possibly  mislead  some  of  those  young 
men  into  whose  hands  it  might  fall,"  he  wTote,  when  he  re- 
introduced it  with  some  slight  modifications,  bringing  it 
closer  to  his  original  meaning,  into  the  third  edition  of  the 
book,  in  1888.  Nevertheless  there  was  sufficient  material  in 
the  revised  version  to  stimulate  certain  minds  in  a  direction 
only  very  remotely  connected  with  that  austere  philosophy 
of  sensations  briefly  referred  to  in  TJie  Renaissance  and  after- 
wards developed  by  Walter  Pater  under  the  idea  of  a  "  New 
Cyrenaicism  "  in  Marius  the  Epicurean  (1885).  To  those 
seeking  a  native  sanction  for  their  decadence,  passages  even 
in  Marius  read  like  invitations.  "  With  the  Cyrenaics  of  all 
ages,  he  would  at  least  fill  up  the  measure  of  that  present 
with  vivid  sensations,  and  such  intellectual  apprehensions 
as,  in  strength  and  directness  and  their  immediately  realised 
values  at  the  bar  of  an  actual  experience,  are  most  like  sensa- 
tions." Such  passages  seemed  in  the  eyes  of  the  decadents 
to  give  a  perverse  twist  to  the  aesthetic  Puritanism  of  the  in- 
tellectual evolution  of  Marius,  and  to  fill  with  a  new  naughti- 
ness that  high  discipline  of  exquisite  taste  to  which  the  young 
pagan  subjected  himself.  It  is  not  surprising  then  to  find 
even  the  revised  version  of  the  famous  "Conclusion" 
acting  as  a  spark  to  the  tinder  of  the  new  acceptance  of 
life. 


60  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

"  The  service  of  philosophy,  of  speculative  culture,  to- 
wards the  human  spirit  is  to  rouse,  to  startle  it  into  sharp 
and  eager  observation.     Every  moment  some  form  grows 
perfect  in  hand  or  face  ;   some  tone  on  the  hills  or  the  sea  is 
choicer  than  the  rest ;    some  mood  of  passion  or  insight  or 
intellectual  excitement  is  irresistibly  real  and  attractive  for 
us, — for  that  moment  only.     Not  the  fruit  of  experience,  but 
experience  itself,  is  the  end.     A  counted  number  of  pulses 
only  is  given  to  us  of  a  variegated,  dramatic  life.     How  may 
we  see  in  them  all  that  is  to  be  seen  in  them  by  the  finest 
senses  ?    How  shall  we  pass  most  swiftly  from  point  to  point, 
and  be  present  always  at  the  focus  where  the  greatest  number 
of  vital  forces  unite  in  their  purest  energy  ?     To  burn  always 
with  this  hard,  gemlike  flame,  to  maintain  this  ecstasy,  is 
success  in  life.     In  a  sense  it  might  even  be  said  that  our 
failure  is  to  form  habits  ;   for,  after  all,  habit  is  relative  to  a 
stereotyped  world,  and  meantime  it  is  only  the  roughness  of 
the  eye  that  makes  any  two  persons,  things,  situations,  seem 
alike.     While  all  melts  under  our  feet,  we  may  well  catch  at 
any  exquisite  passion,  or  any  contribution  to  knowledge  that 
seems  by  a  lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a  moment, 
or  any  stirring  of  the  senses,  strange  dyes,  strange  colours 
and  curious  odours,  or  work  of  the  artist's  hands,  or  the  face 
of  one's  friend.     Not  to  discriminate  every  moment  some 
passionate  attitude  in  those  about  us,  and  in  the  brilliancy 
of  their  gifts  some  tragic  dividing  of  forces  on  their  ways,  is, 
on  this  short  day  of  frost  and  sun,  to  sleep  before  evening. 
With  this  sense  of  the  splendour  of  our  experience  and  of  its 
awful  brevity,  gathering  all  we  are  into  one  desperate  effort 
to  see  and  touch,  we  shall  hardly  have  time  to  make  theories 
about  the  things  we  see  and  touch.     What  we  have  to  do  is 
to  be  for  ever  curiously  testing  new  opinions  and  courting 
new  impressions,  never  acquiescing  in  a  facile  orthodoxy  of 
Comte,  or  of  Hegel,  or  of  our  own.     Philosophical  theories  or 
ideas,  as  points  of  view,  instruments  of  criticism,  may  help 
us  to  gather  up  what  might  otherwise  pass  unregarded  by  us. 
'  Philosophy  is  the  microscope  of  thought. '    The  theory  or 
idea  or  system  which  requires  of  us  the  sacrifice  of  any  part 


THE  DECADENCE  61 

of  this  experience,  in  consideration  of  some  interest  into  which 
we  cannot  enter,  or  some  abstract  theory  we  have  not  identi- 
fied with  ourselves,  or  what  is  only  conventional,  has  no  real 
claim  upon  us." 

But  misappropriation  of  the  teaching  of  Walter  Pater  was 
only  an  incident  in  the  progress  of  decadence  in  England. 
By  the  dawn  of  the  last  decade  of  the  century  susceptible 
thought  had  reverted  to  the  original  French  path  of  decadent 
evolution  which  manifested  itself  from  Theophile  Gautier 
and  Charles  Baudelaire  through  the  brothers  Goncourt,  Paul 
Verlaine,  Arthur  Rimbaud,  Stephane  Mallarme,  toHuysmans, 
with  a  growing  tendency  towards  little  secret  raids  over  the 
German  frontier  where  the  aristocratic  philosophy  of  Fried- 
rich  Nietzsche  was  looted  and  made  to  flash  approval  of  in- 
tentions and  ideas  which  that  philosopher,  like  Pater,  had 
lived  and  worked  to  supersede.  The  publication  of  The 
Picture  of  Dorian  Gray  in  1891  revealed  the  main  influence 
quite  definitely,  for,  apart  from  the  fact  that  Wilde's  novel 
bears  many  obvious  echoes  of  the  most  remarkable  of  French 
decadent  novels,  the  A  Rehours  of  J.  K.  Huysmans,  which 
Arthur  Symons  has  called  "  the  breviary  of  the  decadence," 
it  contains  the  following  passage  which,  although  A  Rehours 
is  not  named,  is  generally  understood  to  refer  to  that  book, 
even  if  the  fact  were  not  otherwise  obvious  : — 

"  His  eyes  fell  on  the  yellow  book  that  Lord  Henry  had 
sent  him.  What  was  it,  he  wondered.  He  went  towards 
the  little  pearl-coloured  octagonal  stand,  that  had  always 
looked  to  him  like  the  work  of  some  strange  Egyptian  bees 
that  wrought  in  silver,  and  taking  up  the  volume,  flung  him- 
self into  an  arm-chair,  and  began  to  turn  over  the  leaves. 
After  a  few  minutes  he  became  absorbed. 

"  It  was  the  strangest  book  he  had  ever  read.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  in  exquisite  raiment,  and  to  the  delicate  sound 
of  flutes,  the  sins  of  the  world  were  passing  in  dumb  show 
before  him.  Things  that  he  had  dimly  dreamed  of  were 
suddenly  made  real  to  him.  Things  of  which  he  had  never 
dreamed  were  gradually  revealed. 


62  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

"  It  was  a  novel  without  a  plot,  and  with  only  one  char- 
acter, being,  indeed,  simply  a  psychological  study  of  a  certain 
young  Parisian  who  spent  his  life  trying  to  realise  in  the 
nineteenth  century  all  the  passions  and  modes  of  thought 
that  belonged  to  every  century  except  his  own,  and  to  sum 
up,  as  it  were,  in  himself  the  various  moods  through  which 
the  world-spirit  had  ever  passed,  loving  for  their  mere  arti- 
ficiality those  renunciations  that  men  have  unwisely  called 
virtue  as  much  as  those  natural  rebellions  that  wise  men  still 
call  sin.  The  style  in  M'hich  it  was  written  was  that  curious 
jewelled  style,  vivid  and  obscure  at  once,  full  of  argot  and  of 
archaisms,  of  technical  expressions  and  of  elaborate  para- 
phrases, that  characterises  the  work  of  some  of  the  finest 
artists  of  the  French  school  of  symbolists.  There  were  in  it 
metaphors  as  monstrous  as  orchids  and  as  evil  in  colour. 
The  life  of  the  senses  was  described  in  the  terms  of  mystical 
philosophy.  One  hardly  knew  at  times  whether  one  was 
reading  the  spiritual  ecstasies  of  some  mediaeval  saint  or  the 
morbid  confessions  of  a  modern  sinner.  It  was  a  poisonous 
book.  The  heavy  odour  of  incense  seemed  to  cling  about  its 
pages  and  to  trouble  the  brain.  The  mere  cadence  of  the 
sentences,  the  subtle  monotony  of  their  music,  so  full  as  it 
was  of  complex  refrains  and  movements  elaborately  repeated, 
produced  in  the  mind  of  the  lad,  as  he  passed  from  chapter  to 
chapter,  a  form  of  reverie,  a  malady  of  dreaming,  that  made 
him  unconscious  of  the  falling  day  and  the  creeping  shadows. " 

This  book  so  revealed  Dorian  Gray  to  himself  that  he  be- 
came frankly  the  Due  Jean  des  Esseintcs  of  English  litera- 
ture. There  are  differences,  to  be  sure,  and  the  sensations 
and  ideas  of  Dorian  Gray  are  not  elaborated  so  scientific- 
ally as  those  of  des  Esscintes,  but  there  is  something 
more  than  coincidence  in  the  resemblance  of  their  attitudes 
towards  life. 

Jean  des  Esseintcs  and  Dorian  Gray  are  the  authentic 
decadent  types.  Extreme  they  are,  as  a  matter  of  course,  but 
their  prototypes  did  exist  in  real  life,  and  minus  those  in- 
cidents wherein  extreme  decadence  expresses  itself  in  serious 


THE  DECADENCE  63 

crime,    such    as   murder    or   incitement    to    murder,    those 
prototypes  had  recognisable  corporeal  being. 

In  the  Eighteen  Nineties   two   such   types   were   Oscar 
Wilde  and  Aubrey  Beardsle}%  each  of  whom  approximated, 
if  not  in  action,  then  in  mind  and  idea  to  des  Esseintes 
and  Dorian  Gray.     There  was  in  both  a  typical  perversity 
of  thought,  which  in  Wilde's  case  led  to  a  contravention  of 
morality  evoking  the  revenge  of  society  and  a  tragic  ending  to 
a  radiant  career.     Both  preferred  the  artificial  to  the  natural. 
"  The  first  duty  in  life  is  to  be  as  artificial  as  possible,"  said 
Oscar  Wilde,  adding,  "what  the  second  duty  is  no  one  has 
as  yet  discovered."    The  business  of  art  as  he  understood  it 
was  to  put  Nature  in  her  proper  place.     To  be  natural  was  to 
be  obvious,  and  to  be  obvious  was  to  be  inartistic.     Aubrey 
Beardsley  invented  a  new  artificiality  in  black  and  white  art, 
and  in  his  romance.  Under  the  Hill,  only  a  carefully  expm*- 
gated  edition  of  which  has  been  made  generally  accessible  to 
the  public,  he  created  an  A  Rebours  of  sexuality.     And  both 
possessed  an  exaggerated  curiosity  as  to  emotional  and  other 
experiences  combined  with  that  precocity  which  is  character- 
istic of  all  decadents.     The  curiosity  and  precocity  of  the 
decadence  were  revealed  in  an   English  writer  before  the 
Eighteen  Nineties  by  the  publication,  in  1886,  of  the  Coji- 
fcssions  of  a  Young  Man,  by  George  Moore  ;  but  apart  from 
the  fact  that  the  author  who  shocked  the  moral  suscepti- 
bilities of  the  people  who  control   lending  libraries,   with 
Esther  Waters,  loved  the  limelight  and  passed  through  en- 
thusiasms for  all  modern  art  movements,  he  was  as  far  re- 
moved from  the  typical  decadent  as  the  latter  is  removed 
from  the  average  smoking-room  citizen  who  satisfies  an  age- 
long taste  for  forbidden  fruit  with  a  risque  story.     George 
Moore  played  at  decadence  for  a  little  while,  but  the  real  in- 
fluences of  his  life  were  Ilaubert  and  the  naturalists  on  the 
one  side,  and  their  corollaries  in  the  graphic  arts,  Manet  and 
the  impressionists,  on  the  other.     For  the  rest  he  insisted 
upon   England    accepting   the   impressionists ;     abandoned 
realism  ;   introduced  into  this  country  the  work  of  Verlaine 
and  Rimbaud,  and  the  autobiography  of  indiscretion  ;  flirted 


64  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

with  the  Irish  Literary  Movement,  and  its  vague  mysticism 
— and  remained  George  Moore. 

The  chief  characteristics  of  the  decadence  were  (1)  Per- 
versity,   (2)    Artificiahty,    (3)    Egoism    and    (4)    Cm-iosity, 
and  these  characteristics  are  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  a 
sincere  desire  "  to  find  the  last  fine  shade,  the  quintessence 
of  things  ;    to  fix  it  fleetingly  ;    to  be  a  disembodied  voice, 
and  yet  the  voice  of  a  human  soul."     Indeed,  when  wrought 
into  the  metal  of  a  soul  impelled  to  adventure  at  whatever 
hazard,  for  sheer  love  of  expanding  the  boundaries  of  human 
experience  and  knowledge  and  power,  these  characteristics 
become,  as  it  were,  the  senses  by  which  the  soul  may  test 
the  flavom*  and  determine  the  quality  of  its  progress.    In  that 
light  they  are  not  decadent  at  all,  they  are  at  one  with  all 
great  endeavour  since  the  dawn  of  human  consciousness. 
What,  after  all,  is  human  consciousness  when  compared  with 
Nature  but  a  perversity — the  self  turning  from  Nature  to 
contemplate  itself  ?     And  is  not  civilisation  artifice's  con- 
spiracy against  what  is  uncivilised  and  natural  ?     As  for 
egoism,  we  ought  to  have  learnt  by  this  time  that  it  is  not 
sufficient  for  a  being  to  say  "  I  am."     He  is  not  a  factor  in 
life  until  he  can  add  to  that  primal  affirmation  a  consum- 
mating   "I    will."     "To    be"    and    "to    will"    exercised 
together  necessitate  action,  which  in  turn  involves  experi- 
ence, and  experience,  not  innocence,  is  the  mother  of  curiosity. 
Not  even  a  child  has  curiosity  until  it  has  experienced  some- 
thing ;    all  inquisitiveness  is  in  tlie  nature  of  life  asking  for 
more,  and  all  so-called  decadence  is  civilisation  rejecting, 
through  certain  specialised  persons,  the  accumulated  experi- 
ences and  sensations  of  the  race.     It  is  a  demand  for  wider 
ranges,  newer  emotional  and  spiritual  territories,  fresh  woods 
and  pastures  new  for  the  soul.     If  you  will,  it  is  a  form  of 
imperialism  of  the  spirit,  ambitious,  arrogant,  aggressive, 
waving  the  flag  of  human  power  over  an  ever  wider  and 
wider  territory.     And  it  is  interesting  to  recollect  that  de- 
cadent art  periods  have  often  coincided  with  such  waves  of 
imperial  patriotism  as  passed  over  the  British  Empire  and 
various  European  countries  during  the  Eighteen  Nineties. 


THE  DECADENCE  65 

It  is,  of  course,  permissible  to  say  that  such  outbreaks  of 
curiosity  and  expansion  are  the  result  of  decay,  a  sign  of  a 
world  grown  hlase,  tired,  played-out ;  but  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  effort  demanded  by  even  the  most  ill- 
directed  phases  of  decadent  action  suggests  a  liveliness  of 
energy  which  is  quite  contrary  to  the  traditions  of  senile 
decay.  During  the  Eighteen  Nineties  such  liveliness  was 
obvious  to  all,  and  even  in  its  decadent  phases  the  period 
possessed  tonic  qualities.  But  the  common-sense  of  the 
matter  is  that  where  the  so-called  decadence  made  for  a  fuller 
and  brighter  life,  demanding  ever  more  and  more  power  and 
keener  sensibilities  from  its  units,  it  was  not  decadent.  The 
decadence  was  decadent  only  when  it  removed  energy  from 
the  common  life  and  set  its  eyes  in  the  ends  of  the  earth 
whether  those  ends  were  pictures,  blue  and  white  china,  or 
colonies.  True  decadence  was  therefore  degeneration  aris- 
ing not  out  of  senility,  for  there  is  nothing  old  under  the  sun, 
but  out  of  surfeit,  out  of  the  ease  with  which  life  was  main- 
tained and  desires  satisfied.  To  kill  a  desire,  as  you  can, 
by  satisfying  it,  is  to  create  a  new  desu'c.  The  decadents 
always  did  that,  with  the  result  that  they  demanded  of  life 
not  repetition  of  old  but  opportunities  for  new  experiences. 
The  whole  attitude  of  the  decadence  is  contained  in  Ernest 
Dowson's  best-known  poem  :  "Non  sum  qualis  eram  bonse 
sub  regno  Cynarse,"  with  that  insatiate  demand  of  a  soul 
surfeited  with  the  food  that  nourishes  not,  and  finding  Avhat 
relief  it  can  in  a  rapture  of  desolation  : 

"  I  cried  for  madder  music  and  for  stronger  wine. 
But  when  the  feast  is  finished,  and  the  lamps  expire, 
Then  falls  thy  shadow,  Cynara  !  the  night  is  thine  ; 
And  I  am  desolate  and  sick  of  an  old  passion. 
Yea,  hungry  for  the  lips  of  my  desire  : 
I  have  been  faithful  to  thee,  Cynara  !  in  my  fashion  t  '' 

In  that  poem  we  have  a  sort  of  parable  of  the  decadent 
soul.  Cynara  is  a  symbol  of  the  unattained  and  perhaps  un- 
attainable joy  and  peace  which  is  the  eternal  dream  of  man. 
The  decadents  of  the  Nineties,  to  do  them  justice,  were  not  so 


66  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

degenerate  as  either  to  have  lost  hope  in  future  joy  or  to  have 
had  full  faith  in  their  attainment  of  it.  Coming  late  in  a 
century  of  material  pressure  and  scientific  attainment  they 
embodied  a  tired  mood,  rejected  hope,  beyond  the  moment, 
and  took  a  subtle  joy  in  playing  with  lire  and  calling  it  sin  ; 
in  scourging  themselves  I'or  an  unholy  delight,  in  tasting  the 
bitter-sweet  of  actions  potent  with  remorse.  They  loved 
the  cleanliness  in  unclean  things,  the  sweetness  in  unsavoury 
alliances  ;  they  did  not  actually  kiss  Cynara,  they  kissed 
her  by  the  proxy  of  some  "  bought  red  mouth."  It  was  as 
though  they  had  gi'own  tired  of  being  good,  in  the  old  accepted 
way,  they  wanted  to  experience  the  piquancy  of  being  good 
after  a  debauch.  They  realised  that  a  merited  kiss  was  not 
half  so  sweet  as  a  kiss  of  forgiveness,  and  this  subtle  voluptu- 
ousness eventually  taught  them  that  the  road  called  de- 
cadence also  led  to  Rome.  The  old  romanticism  began  by 
being  Catholic  ;  Theophile  Gautier  strove  to  make  it  pagan, 
and  succeeded  for  a  time,  but  with  Huj^smans  romanticism 
in  the  form  of  decadence  reverted  to  Rome.  In  England 
the  artists  who  represented  the  renaissance  of  the  Nineties 
were  either  Catholics  like  Francis  Thompson  and  Henry 
Harland  or  prospective  converts  to  Rome,  like  Oscar  Wilde, 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  Lionel  Johnson  and  Ernest  Dowson.  If 
Catholicism  did  not  claim  them  some  other  form  of  mysti- 
cism did,  and  W.  B.  Yeats  and  George  Russell  (A.E.)  became 
Theosophists.  The  one  who  persistently  hardened  himself 
against  the  mj^stical  influences  of  his  period,  John  Davidson, 
committed  suicide. 

The  general  public  first  realised  the  existence  of  the 
decadence  with  the  arrest  and  trial  of  Oscar  Wilde,  and, 
collecting  its  wits  and  its  memories  of  The  Yelloiv  Book, 
the  drawings  of  Aubrey  Beardsley,  and  the  wilful  and 
perverse  epigi'ams  of  A  Woman  of  No  Iniportancc,  it  shook 
its  head  knowingly  and  intimated  that  this  sort  of  thing 
must  be  stopped.  And  the  suddenness  with  which  the  de- 
cadent movement  in  English  literatiu'c  and  art  ceased,  from 
that  time,  proves,  if  it  proves  nothing  else,  the  tremendous 
power  of  outraged  public  opinion  in  this  country.     But  it 


THE  DECADENCE  67 

also  proves  that  English  thought  and  English  morality,  how- 
ever superficial  on  the  one  hand  and  however  hypocritical 
on  the  other,  would  neither  understand  nor  tolerate  the 
curious  exotic  growth  which  had  flowered  in  its  midst. 

The  passing  of  the  decadence  in  England  had  been  pre- 
pared liy  the  satires  of  Robert  Ilichens  and  G.  S.  Street,  in 
The  Green  Carnation  and  The  Autobiography  of  a  Boy,  just  as 
its  earlier  phase,  the  .Esthetic  Movement,  had  been  laughed 
out  of  any  popularity  it  might  have  won  by  W.  H.  Mallock 
in  The  New  Republic,  W.  S.  Gilbert  in  Patience,  and  by  George 
du  Mam-icr  in  a  famous  series  of  humorous  drawings  in  Punch. 
Tlie  weakness  of  The  Green  Carnation  is  that  satire  sails  so 
perilously  near  reality  as,  at  times,  to  lose  itself  in  a  wave  of 
fact.  At  times  the  book  reads  more  like  an  indiscretion  than 
a  satire,  but  no  other  writer  has  realised  so  Avell  the  fatuous 
side  of  the  '"  exquisite  "  and  "  brilliant  "  corner  in  decadence 
which  Oscar  Wilde  made  his  own  : 

''  '  Oh  !  he  has  not  changed,'  said  Mr  Amarinth.  "  That 
is  so  wonderful.  He  never  develops  at  all.  He  alone  under- 
stands the  beauty  of  rigidity,  the  exquisite  severity  of  the 
statuesque  nature.  Men  always  fall  into  the  absurdity  of 
endeavouring  to  develop  the  mind,  to  push  it  violently  for- 
ward in  this  direction  or  in  that.  The  mind  should  be  receiJ- 
tive,  a  harp  waiting  to  catch  the  winds,  a  pool  ready  to  be 
ruffled,  not  a  bustling  busybody,  for  ever  trotting  about  on 
the  pavement  looking  for  a  new  bun  shop.  It  should  not 
deliberately  run  to  seek  sensations,  but  it  should  never  avoid 
one  ;  it  should  never  be  afraid  of  one  ;  it  should  never  put 
one  aside  from  an  absurd  sense  of  right  and  wrong.  Every 
sensation  is  valuable.  Sensations  are  the  details  that  build 
up  the  stories  of  our  lives. ' 

"  '  But  if  we  do  not  choose  our  sensations  carefully,  the 
stories  may  be  sad,  may  even  end  tragically,'  said  Lady 
Locke. 

"  'Oh  !  I  don't  think  that  matters  at  all,  do  you,  Mrs 
Windsor  ?  '  said  Reggie.  '  If  we  choose  carefully,  we  become 
deliberate  at  once ;   and  nothing  is  so  fatal  to  personality 


68  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

as  deliberation.  Wlicn  1  am  good,  it  is  my  mood  to  be 
good  ;  when  I  am  what  is  called  wicked,  it  is  my  mood  to  be 
evil.  I  never  know  what  I  shall  be  at  a  particnlar  moment. 
Sometimes  I  like  to  sit  at  home  after  dinner  and  read  The 
Dream  ofGcrontius.  I  love  lentils  and  cold  water.  At  other 
times  I  must  drink  absinthe,  and  hang  the  night  hours  with 
scarlet  embroideries.  I  must  have  music,  and  the  sins  that 
march  to  music.  There  are  moments  when  I  desire  squalor, 
sinister,  mean  surroundings,  dreariness  and  misery.  The 
great  unwashed  mood  is  upon  me.  Then  I  go  out  from 
luxury.  The  mind  has  its  West  End  and  its  Wliitcchapcl. 
The  thoughts  sit  in  the  park  sometimes,  but  sometimes  they 
go  slumming.  They  enter  narrow  courts  and  rookeries. 
They  rest  in  unimaginable  dens  seeking  contrast,  and  they 
like  the  ruffians  whom  they  meet  there,  and  they  hate  the 
notion  of  policemen  keeping  order.  The  mind  governs  the 
body.  I  never  know  how  I  shall  spend  an  evening  till 
the  evening  has  come.     I  wait  for  my  mood.'  " 

There  is  satire  so  guarded,  and  lacking  just  so  very  dainty 
a  touch  of  humour,  that  the  uninitiated  might  miss  the  point. 
But  that  cannot  be  said  of  the  more  himiorous  touch  of  the 
author  of  The  Autohiography  of  a  Boy.  Esme  Amarinth  and 
Lord  Reginald  Hastings  are  cold,  satirical  echoes  of  Lord 
Henry  Wotton  and  Dorian  Gray,  or  such  prototypes  as  they 
may  have  had  in  actuality  ;  but  the  delightful  Tubby  of  the 
autobiography  is  an  unforgettably  comic  exaggeration  which 
might  laugh  the  veriest  and  most  convinced  of  decadents 
back  to  sanity.  The  introduction  to  the  reader  is  masterly 
in  its  sly  humour. 

"  He  was  expelled  from  two  private  and  one  public  school ; 
but  his  private  tutor  gave  him  an  excellent  character,  prov- 
ing that  the  rough  and  ready  methods  of  schoolmasters' 
appreciation  were  unsuited  to  the  fineness  of  his  nature.  As 
a  young  boy  he  was  not  remarkable  for  distinction  of  the 
ordinary  sort — at  his  prescribed  studies  and  at  games  involv- 
ing muscular  strength  and  activity.     But  in  very  early  life 


THE  DECADENCE  69 

the  infinite  indulgence  of  his  smile  was  famous,  and  as  in  after 
years  was  often  misunderstood  ;  it  was  even  thought  by  his 
schoolfellows  that  its  effect  at  a  crisis  in  his  career  was  largely 
responsible  for  the  rigour  with  which  he  was  treated  by  the 
authorities;  'they  were  not  men  of  the  world,'  was  the 
harshest  comment  he  himself  was  ever  known  to  make  on 
them.  He  spoke  with  invariable  kindness  also  of  the  dons 
at  Oxford  (who  sent  him  down  in  his  third  year),  complaining 
only  that  they  had  not  absorbed  the  true  atmosphere  of  the 
place,  which  he  loved.  He  was  thought  eccentric  there,  and 
was  well  known  only  in  a  small  and  very  exclusive  set.  But 
a  certain  amount  of  general  popularity  was  secured  to  him  by 
the  disfavour  of  the  powers,  his  reputation  for  wickedness, 
and  the  supposed  magnitude  of  his  debts.  His  theory  of  life 
also  compelled  him  to  be  sometimes  drunk.  In  his  first  year 
he  was  a  severe  ritualist,  in  his  second  an  anarchist  and  an 
atheist,  in  his  third  wearily  indifferent  to  all  things,  in  which 
attitude  he  remained  for  the  two  years  since  he  left  the 
university  until  now  when  he  is  gone  from  us.  His  humour 
of  being  carried  in  a  sedan  chair,  swathed  in  blankets  and 
reading  a  Latin  poet,  from  his  rooms  to  the  Turkish  bath,  is 
still  remembered  in  college." 

The  Autobiography  of  a  Boy  is  not,  like  The  Green  Carna- 
tion, a  satire  upon  the  leaders  of  the  decadence  ;  it  is  a  satire 
upon  the  innumerable  hangers-on  to  the  movement— who 
were  perhaps  the  only  real  degenerates.  Perhaps  the  Tubby 
type  will  be  always  with  us,  and  so  long  as  we  have  our 
dominions  beyond  the  seas,  to  which  irate  fathers  may  pack 
them,  all  may  be  well,  especially  if  they  depart  with  such 
superbly  futile  resolves  as  this  Tubby  made  on  the  eve  of  his 
emigration  to  Canada.  "  My  father,"  he  WTites  towards  the 
close  of  his  autobiography,  '*  spoke  of  an  agent  whom  I  was 
to  see  on  my  arrival :  I  think  he  wants  me  to  go  into  a  bank 
out  there.  But  I  shall  make  straight  for  the  forests,  or  the 
mountains,  or  whatever  they  are,  and  try  to  forget.  I  be- 
lieve people  shoot  one  another  there  ;  I  have  never  killed  a 
man,  and  it  may  be  an  experience — the  lust  for  slaughter. 


70  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

They  dress  picturesquely  ;   probably  a  red  sash  Avill  be  the 
keynote  of  my  scheme." 

The  decadence  proper,  in  this  country,  was  only  one  of  the 
expressions  of  the  liveliness  of  the  times.  It  was  the  mood 
of  a  minority,  and  of  a  minority,  perhaps,  that  was  concerned 
more  about  its  o^v'n  moods  than  about  the  meaning  of  life 
and  the  use  of  life.  At  its  worst  it  was  degenerate  in  the 
literal  sense — that  is  to  say,  weak,  invalid,  hectic,  trotting 
with  rather  sad  joy  into  the  citl  de  sac  of  conventional  wicked- 
ness and  peacocking  itself  with  fine  phrases  and  professions 
of  whimsical  daring.  As  such  it  was  open  to  satire  ;  as  such 
it  would  have  suppressed  itself  sooner  or  later  without  the 
intervention  of  public  opinion.  At  its  best,  even  when  that 
best  was  most  artificial  and  most  exotic,  it  realised  much,  if 
it  accomplished  little.  True  it  was  a  movement  of  elderly 
youths  who  wrote  themselves  out  in  a  slender  volume  or  so 
of  hot  verse  or  ornate  prose,  and  slipped  away  to  die  in 
taverns  or  gutters — but  some  of  those  verses  and  that  prose 
are  woven  into  the  fabric  of  Enghsh  literature.  And  if  it 
was  a  movement  always  being  converted,  or  on  the  point  of 
being  converted,  to  the  most  permanent  form  of  Christianity, 
even  though  its  reasons  were  aesthetic,  or  due  entirely  to  a 
yearning  soul- weariness,  it  succeeded  in  checking  a  brazen 
rationalism  which  was  beginning  to  haunt  art  and  life  with 
the  cold  shadow  of  logic.  Ernest  Dowson's  cry  for  "  Madder 
music  and  for  stronger  wine,"  Arthur  Symons'  assertion  that 
"  there  is  no  necessary  difference  in  artistic  value  between  a 
good  poem  about  a  flower  in  the  hedge  and  a  good  poem 
about  the  scent  in  a  sachet,"  and  Oscar  Wilde's  re-assertion 
of  Gautier's  Vart  pour  Vart  (with  possibilities  undreamt  of  by 
Gautier)  are  all  something  more  than  mere  protests  against 
a  stupid  Philistinism  ;  fundamentally  they  are  expressions 
not  so  much  of  art  as  of  vision,  and  as  such  nothing  less  than 
a  demand  for  that  uniting  ecstasy  which  is  the  essence  of 
human  and  every  other  phase  of  life.  All  the  cynicisms 
and  petidances  and  flippancies  of  the  decadence,  the  febrile 
self-assertion,  the  voluptuousness,  the  perversity  were,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  efforts  towards  the  rehabilitation 


THE  DECADENCE  71 

of  spiritual  power.  "I  see,  indeed,"  wrote  W.  B.  Yeats, 
"  in  the  arts  of  every  country  those  faint  hghts  and  faint 
colours  and  faint  outlines  and  faint  energies  which  many 
call  'the  decadence,'  and  which  I,  because  I  believe  that 
the  arts  lie  dreaming  of  things  to  come,  prefer  to  call  the 
autumn  of  the  body.  An  Irish  poet,  whose  rhythms  are 
like  the  cry  of  a  sea-bird  in  autumn  twilight,  has  told  its 
meaning  in  the  line,  '  the  very  sunlight's  weary,  and  it's 
time  to  quit  the  plough.'  Its  importance  is  great  because 
it  comes  to  us  at  the  moment  when  we  are  beginning  to  be 
interested  in  many  things  which  positive  science,  the  inter- 
preter of  exterior  law,  has  always  denied  :  communion  of 
mind  with  mind  in  thought  and  without  words,  foreknow- 
ledge in  dreams  and  in  visions,  and  the  coming  among  us  of 
the  dead,  and  of  much  else.  We  are,  it  may  be,  at  a  crown- 
ing crisis  of  the  world,  at  the  moment  when  man  is  about  to 
ascend,  with  the  wealth  he  has  been  so  long  gathering  upon 
his  shoulders,  the  stairway  he  has  been  descending  from 
the  first  days."  So  it  may  be  that  this  movement,  which 
accepted  as  a  badge  the  reproach  of  decadence,  is  the  first 
hot  flush  of  the  only  ascendant  movement  of  our  times ; 
and  that  the  strange  and  bizarre  artists  who  lived  tragic 
lives  and  made  tragic  end  of  their  lives,  are  the  mad  priests 
of  that  new  romanticism  whose  aim  was  the  transmutation 
of  vision  into  personal  power. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE 

THE  singularity  of  Oscar  Wilde  has  puzzled  ^^Tite^s 
since  his  death  quite  as  much  as  it  puzzled  tjic  public 
during  the  startled  years  of  his  wonderful  visit  to 
these  glimpses  of  Philistia  ;  for  after  all  that  has  been  %vTitten 
about  him  we  are  no  nearer  a  convincing  interpretation  of 
his  character  than  we  were  during  the  gi'eat  silence  which  im- 
mediately followed  his  trial  and  imprisonment.  Robert  H. 
Sherard's  Oscar  Wilde :  The  Story  of  an  Unhappy  Friend- 
ship, throws  the  clear  light  of  sincerity  and  eloquence  upon 
his  own  and  his  subject's  capacity  for  friendship,  but  little 
more  than  that ;  Andre  Gide  has  created  a  delightful,  liter- 
ary miniature  which  must  always  hang  on  the  line  in  any 
galler}^  of  studies  of  Oscar  Wilde,  but  his  work  is  portraiture 
rather  than  interpretation.  For  the  rest,  we  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  such  indications  of  character  as  may  be  obtained 
from  the  numerous  critical  essays  which  have  been  published 
during  the  last  few  years,  notable  among  them  being  Arthur 
Ransome's  fine  study,  and  the  alwa}\s  wise  commentations 
of  Wilde's  literary  executor  and  editor,  Robert  Ross,  and 
the  notes  and  collectanea  of  Stuart  Mason.  But  whatever 
ultimate  definition  his  character  may  assume  in  future 
biography,  and  however  difficult  such  definition  may  be,  it 
is  not  so  hard  to  define  Oscar  Wilde's  position  and  influence 
during  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  what 
proved  to  be  as  well  the  last  decade  of  his  own  life. 

In  the  year  1889  Oscar  Wilde  might  have  passed  away 
without  creating  any  further  comment  than  that  which  is 
accorded  an  eccentric  poet  who  has  succeeded  in  drawing 
attention  to  himself  and  his  work  by  certain  audacities  of 
costume  and  opinion.     His  first  phase  was  over,  and  he  had 

72 


Oscar  Wilde  (1895) 

From  the  Photo«?-a/>/i  hy  Ellis  &r  II  'aUry 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE       73 

become  an  out-moded  apostle  of  an  aestheticism  which  had 
already  taken  the  place  of  a  whimsically  remembered  fad,  a 
fad  wliich,  even  then,  almost  retained  its  only  significance 
through  the  medium  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's  satirical  opera, 
Patience.  He  was  the  man  who  had  evoked  merriment  by 
announcing  a  desire  to  live  up  to  his  blue-and-white  china  ; 
he  was  the  man  who  had  created  a  sort  of  good-humoured 
indignation  by  expressing  displeasure  with  the  Atlantic 
Ocean:  "I  am  not  exactly  pleased  with  the  Atlantic,"  he 
had  confessed.  "  It  is  not  so  majestic  as  I  expected  " ; 
and  whose  later  dissatisfaction  with  Niagara  Falls  convinced 
the  United  States  of  America  of  his  flippancy  :  "  I  was  dis- 
appointed with  Niagara.  Most  people  must  be  disappointed 
with  Niagara,  Every  American  bride  is  taken  there,  and 
the  sight  of  the  stupendous  waterfall  must  be  one  of  the 
earliest  if  not  the  keenest  disappointments  in  American 
married  life."  These  sayings  were  beginning  to  be  re- 
membered dimly,  along  with  the  picturesque  memories  of  a 
plum-coloured  velveteen  knickerbocker  suit  and  a  famous 
stroll  down  Bond  Street  as  a  form  of  aesthetic  propaganda 
by  example.     This  memory  also  was  aided  by  W.  S.  Gilbert : 

"  If  you  walk  down  Piccadilly 
With  a  poppy  or  a  lily 

In  your  medicsval  hand.  .   .  .'-' 

But  certain  encounters  with  Whistler,  in  which  Oscar 
Wilde  felt  the  sting  of  the  Butterfly,  were  remembered  more 
distinctly  and  with  more  satisfaction,  with  the  result  that, 
besides  being  outmoded,  he  became  soiled  by  the  charge  of 
plagiarism.  "I  wish  I  had  said  that,"  he  remarked  once, 
approving  of  one  of  Whistler's  witticisms.  "  You  will, 
Oscar  ;  you  will !  "  was  the  reply.  And  still  more  emphatic, 
the  great  painter  had  said  on  another  occasion  :  ''  Oscar  has 
the  courage  of  the  opinions  ...  of  otliers  !  "  The  fact  was 
that  the  brilliant  Oxford  graduate  had  not  yet  fulfilled  the 
promise  of  his  youth,  of  his  first  book,  and  of  his  own  witty 
audacity.  He  had  achieved  notoriety  without  fame,  and 
literary  reputation  without  a  sufficient  means  of  livelihood, 


74  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

and  so  small  was  his  position  in  letters  that,  from  1887  to 
1889,  we  find  him  eking  out  a  living  by  editing  The  Woman's 
World  for  Messrs  Cassell  &  Co. 

His  successes  during  this  period  were  chiefly  in  the  realms 
of  friendship,  and  of  this  the  public  knew  nothing.    Publicly 
he  was  treated  with   amiable  contempt :    he  was  a  social 
jester,  an  intellectual  buffoon,  a  poseur  ;    food  for  the  self- 
righteous  laughter  of  the  Philistines  ;  fair  quarry  for  the  wits 
of  Punch,  who  did  not  miss  their  chance.     Yet  during  the 
very  years  he  was  controlling  editorial  destinies  which  were 
more  than  foreign  to  his  genius,  he  was  taking  the  final  pre- 
paratory steps  towards  the  attractive  and  sometimes  splendid 
literary  outburst  of  his  last  decade.     Dm-ing  1885  and  1890 
his  unripe  genius  was  feeling  its  way  ever  surer  and  surer 
towards  that  mastery  of  technique  and  increasing  thought- 
fulness  which  afterwards  displayed  themselves.     This  was 
a  period  of  transition  and  co-ordination.     Oscar  Wilde  was 
evolving  out  of  one  hizarrerie  and  passing  into  another.     And 
in  this  evolution  he  was  not  only  shedding  plumes  borrowed 
from  Walter  Pater,  Swinburne  and  Whistler,  he  was  retain- 
ing such  of  them  as  suited   his  needs  and   making  them 
defmitely  his  own.     But,  further  than  that,  he  w^as  shedding 
his  purely  British  masters  and  allowing  himself  to  fall  more 
directly  under  the  influence  of  a  new  set  of  masters  in  France, 
where  he  was  always  at  home,  and  where  he  had  played  the 
"  sedulous  ape  "  to  Balzac  some  years  earlier.     From  time 
to  time  during  these  years  he  had  polished  and  engraved  and 
added  to  the  luxuriant  imagery  of  that  masterpiece  of  baroque 
poetry.    The   Sjjhinx,   which   was    published   in   1894   in   a 
beautiful    format    with    decorations    by    Charles    Rieketts. 
Essays  like  "The  Truth  of  Masks  "  and  ''  Shakespeare  and 
Stage  Costume  "  appeared  in  the  pages  of  The  Nineteenth 
Centurij  in  1885  ;   in  other  publications  appeared  such  stories 
as  "  The  Sphinx  without  a  Secret,"  "  The  Canterville  Ghost  " 
and  "Lord  Arthur  Savile's  Crime,"  and  in  1888  he  issued 
The   Happy   Prince  and   Other    Tales.     "  Pen,    Pencil    and 
Poison  "  appeared  in  The  Fortnightly  Reviexo  in  1889,  and  in 
the  same  year  The  Nineteenth  Century  ])ublished  the  first  of 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE      75 

his  two  great  colloquies,  The  Decay  of  Lying.  In  all  of  these 
stories  and  essays  his  style  was  conquering  its  weaknesses 
and  achieving  the  undeniable  distinction  which  made  him 
the  chief  force  of  the  renaissance  of  the  early  Nineties,  In 
1890  his  finest  colloquy,  "  The  Critic  as  Artist,"  appeared  in 
The  Nineteenth  Century.  Several  of  the  above-named  essays 
and  tales  went  to  the  making  of  two  of  his  most  important 
books,  The  House  of  Pomegranates  and  Intentions,  both  of 
which  appeared  in  the  first  year  of  the  Nineties,  and  in  the 
same  year  he  published  in  book  form  the  complete  version 
of  The  Picture  of  Dorian  Gray,  thirteen  chapters  of  which 
had  appeared  serially  in  LvppincotVs  Monthly  Magazine  in 
the  previous  year. 

Thus,  with  the  dawn  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties,  Oscar  Wilde 
came  into  his  own.  The  House  of  Pomegranates  alone  was 
sufficient  to  establish  his  reputation  as  an  artist,  but  the 
insouciant  attitude  of  the  paradoxical  philosopher  revealed 
in  The  Picture  of  Doi'ian  Gray  and  Intentions  stung  waning 
interest  in  the  whilom  apostle  of  beauty  to  renewed  activity. 
Shaking  off  the  astonishing  reputation  which  had  won  him 
early  notoriety  as  the  posturing  advertiser  of  himself  by 
virtue  of  the  ideas  of  others,  he  arose  co-ordinate  and  re- 
splendent, an  individual  and  an  influence.  He  translated 
himself  out  of  a  subject  for  anecdote  into  a  subject  for  dis- 
cussion. And  whilst  not  entirely  abandoning  that  art  of 
personality  which  had  brought  him  notoriety  as  a  conversa- 
tionali.st  and  dandy  in  salon  and  drawing-room  and  at  the 
dinner- table,  he  transmuted  the  personality  thus  cultivated 
into  the  more  enduring  art  of  literature,  and  that  brought 
him  fame  of  which  notoriety  is  but  the  base  metal.  For 
many  years  he  had  looked  to  the  theatre  as  a  further  means 
of  expression  and  financial  gain,  and  he  had  tried  his  'prentice 
hand  on  the  drama  with  Vera  :  or  the  Nihilists  in  1882,  which 
was  produced  unsuccessfully  in  America  in  1883,  and  with 
The  Duchess  of  Padua,  written  for  Mary  Anderson  and  re- 
jected by  her  about  the  same  time,  and  produced  without 
encouraging  results  in  New  York  in  1891.  There  were  also 
two  other  early  plays,  A  Florentine  Tragedy,  a  fragment  only 


76  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

of  which  remains,  and  The  Woman  Covered  with  Jewels,  which 
seems  to  have  been  entirely  lost.  The  failure  of  these  works 
to  make  any  sort  of  impression  involves  no  reflection  on  the 
public,  as  they  are  the  veriest  stuff  of  the  beginner  and  imi- 
tator ;  echoes  of  Sardou  and  Scribe  ;  romantic  costume  plays 
inspired  by  the  theatre  rather  than  by  life,  and  possessing 
none  of  the  signs  of  that  skilled  craftsmanship  upon  which 
the  merely  stage- carpentered  play  must  necessarily  depend. 
But  with  that  change  in  the  whole  trend  of  his  genius  which 
heralded  the  first  year  of  the  Nineties  came  a  change  also  in 
his  skill  as  a  playwright.  In  1891  he  wrote  Salome  in  French, 
afterwards  translated  into  English  by  Lord  Alfred  Douglas 
and  published  by  the  Bodley  Head,  with  illustrations  by 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  in  1894.  This  play  would  have  been  pro- 
duced at  the  Palace  Theatre  in  1892  with  Madame  Sarah 
Bernhardt  in  the  cast,  had  not  the  censor  intervened.  Oscar 
Wilde  achieved  his  first  dramatic  success  with  Lady  Winder- 
mere''s  Fan,  produced  by  George  Alexander  at  the  St  James's 
Theatre,  on  20th  February  1892.  The  success  was  immedi- 
ate. Next  year  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree  produced  A  Woman 
of  No  Importance  at  the  Hajanarket  Theatre  before  even 
more  enthusiastic  audiences.  In  1895  An  Ideal  Husband  was 
produced  at  the  same  theatre  in  January,  and,  in  February, 
The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest  was  produced  at  the 
St  James's. 

Oscar  Wilde  had  now  reached  the  age  of  forty-one  and  the 
height  of  his  fame  and  power.  "  The  man  who  can  dominate 
a  London  dinner-table  can  dominate  the  world,"  he  liad  said. 
He  had  dominated  many  a  London  dinner-table  ;  he  now 
dominated  the  London  stage.  He  was  a  monarch  in  his  own 
sphere,  rich,  famous,  popular  ;  looked  up  to  as  a  master  by 
the  younger  generation,  courted  by  the  fashionable  world, 
loaded  with  commissions  by  theatrical  managers,  inter- 
viewed, paragraphed  and  pictured  by  the  Press,  and  envied 
by  the  envious  and  the  incompetent.  All  the  flattery  and 
luxury  of  success  were  his,  and  his  luxuriant  and  applause- 
loving  nature  appeared  to  revel  in  the  glittering  surf  of  con- 
quest like  a  joyous  bather  in  a  sunny  sea.     But  it  was  only 


OSCAR  \yiLDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE      77 

a  partial  victory.  The  apparent  capitulation  of  the  upper 
and  middle  classes  was  illusory,  and  even  the  man  in  the 
street  who  heard  about  him  and  wondered  was  moved  by  an 
uneasy  suspicion  that  all  was  not  well.  For,  in  spite  of  the 
flattery  and  the  amusement,  Oscar  Wilde  never  succeeded 
in  winning  popular  respect.  His  intellectual  playfulness 
destroyed  popular  faith  in  his  sincerity,  and  the  British 
people  have  still  to  learn  that  one  can  be  as  serious  in  one's 
play  with  ideas  as  in  one's  play  with  a  football.  The  danger 
of  his  position  was  all  the  more  serious  because  those  who 
were  ready  to  laugh  with  him  were  never  tired  of  laughing  at 
him.  This  showed  that  lack  of  confidence  which  is  the  most 
fertile  ground  of  suspicion,  and  Wilde  was  always  suspected 
in  this  country  even  before  the  rumours  which  culminated 
in  his  trial  and  imprisonment  began  to  filter  through  the 
higher  strata  of  society  to  the  lower.  It  sufficed  that  he 
was  strange  and  clever  and  seemingly  happy  and  indifferent 
to  public  opinion.  This  popular  suspicion  is  sunmiarised 
clearly,  and  with  the  sort  of  disrespect  from  which  he  never 
escaped  even  in  his  hour  of  trimiiph,  in  an  article  in  Pearson'' s 
Weekly  for  27th  May  1893,  written  immediately  after  the 
success  of  Lady  W indemiere' s  Fan  and  A  Woman  of  No 
Importance  : 

"  Where  he  does  excel  is  in  affectation.  His  mode  of  life, 
his  manner  of  speech,  his  dress,  his  views,  his  work,  are  all 
masses  of  affectation.  Affectation  has  become  a  second 
nature  to  him,  and  it  would  probably  now  be  utterly  im- 
possible for  him  to  revert  to  the  original  Oscar  that  lies  be- 
neath it  all.  In  fact,  probably  none  of  his  friends  have  ever 
had  an  opportunity  of  finding  out  what  manner  of  man  the 
real  Oscar  is.  .  .  .  So  long  as  he  remains  an  amiable  eccen- 
tricity and  the  producer  of  amusing  trifles,  however,  one 
cannot  be  seriously  angry  ^vith  him.  So  far,  it  has  never 
occmTcd  to  any  reasonable  person  to  take  him  seriously,  and 
the  storms  of  ridicule  to  which  he  has  exposed  himself  have 
prevented  his  becoming  a  real  nuisance.  For  the  present, 
however,  we  may  content  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that 


78  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

there  is  no  serious  danger  to  be  apprehended  to  the  State 
Irom  the  vagaries  ol"  a  butterfly." 

The  aboN  e  may  be  taken  as  a  i'air  example  of  the  attitude 
oi'  the  })opuhu*  Press  towards  Osear  Wilde,  and  the  same 
sentiments  were  expressed,  varying  only  in  degrees  of  literary 
polish,  in  many  direetions,  even  at  a  time  when  the  new  spirit 
of  eomedy  he  had  introdueed  into  the  British  theatre  was 
giving  unbounded  delight  to  a  \ast  throng  of  fashionable 
playgoers  ;  for  these  plays  had  not  to  ereate  audiences  for 
themselves,  like  the  plays  of  Bernard  Shaw  ;  they  were  im- 
mediately acclaimed,  and  Wilde  at  once  took  rank  with 
popular  playwrights  like  Sydney  Grundy  and  Pinero. 

There  were  of  course  many  who  admired  him  ;  and  he 
always  inspired  friendship  among  his  intimates.  All  who 
have  written  of  him  during  his  earlier  period  and  during  the 
early  days  of  his  triumph  refer  to  his  joyous  and  resplendent 
personality,  his  fine  scholarship,  his  splendid  manners  and 
conversational  gifts,  his  good  humour  and  his  lavisli  generosity. 
Andre  Gide  gives  us  many  glimpses  of  ^^'ilde  both  before  and 
after  his  downfall,  one  of  which  reveals  him  as  table-talker  : 

"  I  had  heard  him  talked  about  at  Stephane  Mallarme's 
house,  where  he  was  described  as  a  brilliant  conversationalist, 
and  I  expressed  a  wish  to  know  him,  little  hoping  that  I 
should  ever  do  so.  A  happy  chance,  or  rather  a  friend,  gave 
me  the  opportunity,  and  to  him  I  made  known  my  desire. 
Wilde  was  invited  to  dinner.  It  was  at  a  restaurant.  We 
were  a  party  of  four,  but  three  of  us  were  content  to  listen. 
Wilde  did  not  converse — he  told  tales.  During  the  whole 
meal  he  hardly  stopped.  He  spoke  in  a  slow,  musical 
tone,  and  his  very  voice  was  wonderful.  He  knew  French 
almost  perfectly,  but  pretended,  now  and  then,  to  hesitate 
for  a  word  to  which  he  wanted  to  call  our  attention.  He 
had  scarcely  any  accent,  at  least  only  what  it  pleased  him 
to  affect  when  it  might  give  a  somewhat  new  or  strange 
appearance  to  a  word — for  instance,  he  used  purposely  to 
pronounce  scepticisme  as  skepticisme.  The  stories  he  told  us 
without  a  break  that  e\  ening  were  not  of  his  best.     Uncertain 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE       79 

of  his  audience,  he  was  testing  us,  for,  in  his  wisdom,  or 
perhaps  in  his  folly,  he  never  betrayed  himself  into  saying 
anything  which  he  thought  would  not  be  to  the  taste  of  his 
hearers ;  so  he  doled  out  food  to  each  according  to  his  appe- 
tite. Those  who  expected  nothing  from  him  got  notliing,  or 
only  a  little  light  froth,  and  as  at  first  he  used  to  give  himself 
up  to  the  task  of  amusing,  many  of  those  who  thought  they 
knew  him  will  have  known  him  only  as  the  amuscr." 

With  the  progress  of  his  triumph  as  a  successful  playwright, 
his  friends  observed  a  coarsening  of  his  a])pearance  and 
character,  and  he  lost  his  powers  of  conversation.  Robert  H. 
Sherard  met  him  during  the  Clu'istmas  season  of  1894  and 
described  his  appearance  as  bloated.  His  face  seemed  to 
liave  lost  its  spiritual  beauty,  and  he  was  oozing  with  material 
prosperity.  At  this  time  serious  rumours  about  his  })rivate 
life  and  habits  became  more  persistent  in  both  London  and 
Paris,  and  countenance  was  lent  to  them  by  the  publication 
of  The  Green  Carnation,  which,  although  making  no  direct 
charge,  hinted  at  strange  sins.  Oscar  Wilde  knew  that  his 
conduct  must  lead  to  catastrophe,  although  many  of  his 
friends  believed  in  his  innocence  to  the  end.  Andre  Gide 
met  him  in  Algiers  just  before  the  catastrophe  happened. 
Wilde  explained  that  he  was  fleeing  from  art : 

"  He  spoke  of  returning  to  London,  as  a  well-known  peer 
was  insulting  him,  challenging  him,  and  taunting  him  with 
running  away. 

"  '  But  if  you  go  back  what  will  happen  ?  '  I  asked  him. 
'  Do  you  know  the  risk  you  are  running  ?  ' 

"  '  It  is  best  never  to  know,'  he  answered.  'My  friends 
are  extraordinary — they  beg  me  to  be  careful.  Careful  ? 
But  how  can  I  be  careful  ?  That  would  be  a  backward  step. 
I  must  go  on  as  far  as  possible.  I  cannot  go  much  further. 
Something  is  bound  to  happen  .  .  .  something  else.' 

"  Here  he  broke  off,  and  the  next  da}^  he  left  for  England." 

Almost  immediately  after  his  arrival  he  brought  an  action 
for  criminal  libel  against  the  Marquis  of  Queensbcrry  and, 


80  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

upon  losing  the  case,  was  arrested,  and  charged  under  the 
11th  Section  of  the  Criminal  Law  x\nicndment  Act,  and 
sentenced  to  two  years'  penal  servitude.  During  his  im- 
prisonment he  wrote  Dc  Profundis,  in  the  form  of  a  long 
letter,  addressed  but  not  delivered,  to  Lord  Alfred  Douglas, 
a  part  of  which  was  published  in  1905,  and  after  his  release 
he  wrote  The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  published,  under  a 
pseudomaii,  "  C.  3.  3,"  (his  prison  number),  by  Leonard 
Smithcrs,  and  he  contributed  two  letters  on  the  conditions 
of  prison  life,  "  The  Cruelties  of  Prison  Life,"  and  "  Don't 
Read  this  if  you  Want  to  be  Hai)py  To-day,"  to  The  Daily 
Chronicle  in  1897  and  1898.     These  were  his  last  writings. 

After  leaving  prison  he  lived  for  a  while,  under  the  assumed 
name  of  "  Sebastian  Mclmoth,"  at  the  Hotel  de  la  Plage,  and 
later  at  the  Villa  Bourgct,  Berneval-sur-Mer,  near  Dieppe, 
where  he  wrote  Tfie  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  and  the  prison 
letters,  and  where  he  contemplated  writing  a  play  called 
Ahab  and  Jezebel.  This  play  he  hoped  would  be  his  passport 
to  the  world  again.  But  a  new  restlessness  overcame  him, 
and  all  his  good  resolutions  turned  to  dust.  For  a  while  he 
travelled,  visiting  Italy,  the  south  of  France  and  Switzer- 
land, eventually  settling  in  Paris,  where  he  died,  in  poverty 
and  a  penitent  Catholic,  on  30th  November  1900.  He  was 
buried  in  the  Bagneux  Cemetery,  but  on  20th  July  1909  his 
remains  were  removed  to  Pere  Lachaise. 

It  is  too  soon,  perhaps,  even  now,  to  set  a  final  value  upon 
the  work  of  Oscar  Wilde.  Time,  although  not  an  infallible 
critic,  is  already  winnowing  the  chaff  from  the  grain,  and 
almost  with  the  passing  of  each  year  we  are  better  able  to 
recognise  the  more  permanent  essences  of  his  literary  re- 
mains. It  is  inevitable  in  his  case,  where  the  glaniom-  of 
personality  added  so  significantly  to  the  character  of  his 
work,  that  Time  should  insist  upon  being  something  more 
than  a  casual  arbiter.  In  proof  of  this  the  recollection 
of  so  nmch  futile  criticism  of  VV'ilde  cannot  be  overlooked. 
Both  the  man  and  his  work  have  suffered  depreciations 
which  amount  to  defamation,  and  appraisals  which  can  only 
be  described  as  silly.     But  finally  he  would  seem  in  many 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE       81 

instances  to  have  suffered  more  at  the  hands  of  his  friends 
than  his  enemies.  There  have  been,  to  be  sure,  several  wise 
estimations  of  his  genius,  even  in  this  country,  notably  those 
of  Arthur  Ransome  and  the  not  altogether  unprovocative 
essay  of  Arthur  Symons,  entitled  "  An  Artist  in  Attitudes  "  ; 
and  the  various  prefaces  and  notes  contributed  by  Robert 
Ross  to  certain  of  the  volumes  in  the  complete  edition  of  the 
works  are,  of  course,  of  great  value.  But,  as  the  incidents 
associated  with  the  life  and  times  of  Wilde  recede  further 
into  the  background  of  the  mental  picture  which  inevitably 
forms  itself  about  any  judgment  of  his  work,  we  shall  be  able 
to  obtain  a  less  biased  view.  Even  then,  our  perspective 
may  be  wrong,  for  this  difficulty  of  personality  is  not  only 
dominant,  but  it  may  be  essential. 

The  personality  of  Oscar  Wilde,  luxuriant,  pi(^uant  and 
insolent  as  it  was,  is  sufficiently  emphatic  to  compel  attention 
so  long  as  interest  in  his  ideas  or  his  works  survives.  Indeed, 
it  may  never  be  quite  possible  to  separate  such  a  man  from 
such  work.  It  is  certainly  impossible  to  do  so  now.  With 
many  writers,  perhaps  the  majority,  it  requires  no  effort  to 
forget  the  author  in  the  book,  because  literature  has  effectu- 
ally absorbed  personality,  or  all  that  was  distinctive  of  the 
author's  personality.  With  Oscar  Wilde  it  is  otherwise. 
His  books  can  never  be  the  abstract  and  brief  chronicles  of 
himself ;  for,  admittedly  on  his  part,  and  recognisably  on 
the  part  of  others,  he  put  even  more  distinction  into  his  life 
than  he  did  into  his  art.  Not  always  the  worthier  part  of 
himself;  for  that  often,  and  more  often  in  his  last  phase, 
was  reserved  for  his  books.  But  there  is  little  doubt  that 
the  complete  Oscar  Wilde  was  the  living  and  bewildering 
personality  which  rounded  itself  off  and  blotted  itself  out  in 
a  tragedy  which  was  all  the  more  nihilistic  because  of  its 
abortive  attempt  at  recuperation — an  attempt  which  im- 
mortalised itself  in  the  repentant  sincerity  of  De  Profundis, 
but  almost  immediately  fell  forward  into  an  anticlimax  of 
tragedy  more  pitiful  than  the  first. 

So  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge,  and  with  the  aid  of  winnow- 
ing Time,   it  is  already  possible  to  single  out  the    small 


82  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

contribution  made  by  Oscar  Wilde  to  poetry.  The  bulk  of 
his  poetry  is  negligible.  It  represents  little  more  than  the 
ardent  outpourings  of  a  young  man  still  deeply  indebted 
to  his  masters.  One  or  two  Ij^rics  will  certainly  survive  in 
the  anthologies  of  the  future,  but  if  Wilde  were  dependent 
upon  his  ^'erses  for  future  acceptance  his  place  would  be 
among  the  minor  poets.  There  is,  however,  a  reservation 
to  be  made  even  here,  as  there  is  in  almost  every  generalisa- 
tion about  this  elusive  personality  ;  he  wrote  three  poems, 
two  towards  the  close  of  his  earlier  period.  The  Harlot's 
House  and  The  Sphinx,  and  one  near  the  close  of  his  life, 
The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  which  bear  every  indication  of 
permanence.  The  two  former  will  appeal  to  those  who 
respond  to  strange  and  exotic  emotions,  the  latter  to  those 
who  are  moved  by  the  broader  ciu'rent  of  average  human 
feeling.  His  last  poem,  and  last  work,  does  not  reveal  merely 
Oscar  Wilde's  acceptance  of  a  realistic  attitude,  it  reveals 
what  might  have  been,  had  he  lived  to  pursue  the  matter 
further,  conversion  to  a  natural  and  human  acceptation  of 
life.  The  sense  of  simplicity  in  art  which  previously  he 
had  been  content  to  use  as  a  refuge  for  the  deliberately  com- 
plex, as  a  sort  of  intensive  culture  for  modern  bewilderment, 
is  now  used  wath  even  greater  effect  in  the  cause  of  the  most 
obvious  of  human  emotions — pity  : 

"  I  never  saw  a  man  who  looked 

With  such  a  wistful  eye 
Upon  that  Httle  tent  of  bhie 

Which  prisoners  call  the  sky, 
And  at  every  drifting  cloud  tliat  went 

With  sails  of  silver  by. 

I  walked,  with  other  souls  in  pain, 

Within  another  ring, 
And  was  wondering  if  the  man  had  done 

A  great  or  little  thing, 
When  a  voice  beliind  me  wliispcred  low, 

-  That  fellow's  got  to  siving.'  "■ 

There  is  none  of  the  old  earnest  insincerity  in  this  poem, 
and  only  occasionally  does  the  poet  fall  back  into  the  old 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE       83 

bizarrerie.  Had  The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol  been  written  a 
hundred  years  ago,  it  would  have  been  printed  as  a  broad- 
side and  sold  in  the  streets  by  the  balladmongers  ;  it  is  so 
common  as  that,  and  so  gi-eat  as  that.  But  there  is  nothing 
common,  and  nothing  great,  in  the  universal  sense,  about 
the  two  earlier  poems.  These  are  distinguished  only  as  the 
expressions  of  unusual  vision  and  unusual  mood  ;  they  are 
decadent  in  so  far  as  they  express  emotions  that  are  sterile 
and  perverse.  They  are  decadent  in  the  sense  that  Baude- 
laire was  decadent,  from  whom  they  inherit  almost  every- 
thing save  the  English  in  which  they  are  framed.  But  few 
will  doubt  their  claim  to  a  place  in  a  curious  artistic  niche. 
The  Sphinx,  a  masterly  fantasy  of  bemused  artificiality,  is 
really  a  poetic  design,  an  arabesque  depending  for  effect 
upon  hidden  rhymes  and  upon  strange  fancies,  expressing 
sensations  which  have  hitherto  been  enshrined  in  art  rather 
than  in  life  : 

"  Your  eyes  are  like  fantastic  moons  that  shiver  in  some  stagnant 
lake, 
Your  tongue  is  Uke  some  scarlet  snake  that  dances  to  fantastic  tunes, 

Your  pulse  makes  poisonous  melodies,  and  your  black  throat  is  like 

the  hole 
Left  by  some  torch  or  burning  coal  on  Saracenic  tapestries." 

Similarly,  T'he  Harlot'' s  House  interprets  a  mood  that  is  so 
sinister  and  impish  and  unusual  as  to  express  disease  rather 
than  health  : 

"  Sometimes  a  horrible  marionette 
Came  out,  and  smoked  its  cigarette 
Upon  the  steps  like  a  live  thing. 

Then  turning  to  my  love,  I  said, 

'  The  dead  are  dancing  with  tlic  dead. 

The  dust  is  whirling  with  the  dust.' 

But  she — she  heard  the  violin. 
And  left  my  side,  and  entered  in  : 
Love  passed  into  the  house  of  lust." 


84  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Wilde  developed  this  abnormal  attitude  towards  life  in 
The  Picture  of  Dorian  Gray  and  in  Salome,  and  in  each  of 
these  prose  works  he  endeavours,  often  with  sueeess,  to 
stimulate  feelings  that  are  usually  suppressed,  by  means  of 
what  is  strange  and  rare  in  art  and  luxury.  It  is  not  the 
plot  that  you  think  about  whilst  reading  Salome,  but  the 
obvious  desire  of  the  author  to  tune  the  senses  and  the  mind 
to  a  preposterous  key  : 

"  I  have  jewels  hidden  in  this  place — jewels  that  yoiu' 
mother  even  has  never  seen  ;  jewels  that  are  marvellous.  I 
have  a  collar  of  pearls,  set  in  four  rows.  They  are  hke  unto 
moons  chained  with  rays  of  silver.  They  are  like  fifty  moons 
caught  in  a  golden  net.  On  the  ivory  of  her  breast  a  queen 
has  worn  it.  Thou  shalt  be  as  fair  as  a  queen  when  thou 
wearest  it.  I  have  amethysts  of  two  kinds,  one  that  is  black 
like  wine,  and  one  that  is  red  like  wine  which  has  been 
coloured  with  water.  I  have  topazes  yellow  as  are  the  eyes 
of  tigers,  and  topazes  that  are  pink  as  the  eyes  of  a  wood- 
pigeon,  and  green  topazes  that  are  as  the  eyes  of  cats.  I 
have  opals  that  burn  always,  with  an  icelike  flame,  opals 
that  make  sad  men's  minds,  and  are  fearful  of  the  shadows. 
I  have  onyxes  like  the  eyeballs  of  a  dead  woman.  I  have 
moonstones  that  change  when  the  moon  changes,  and  arc 
wan  when  they  see  the  sun.  I  have  sapphires  big  like  eggs, 
and  as  blue  as  blue  flowers.  The  sea  wanders  within  them 
and  the  moon  comes  never  to  trouble  the  blue  of  their  waves. 
I  have  chrysolites  and  beryls  and  ehrysoprascs  and  rubies. 
I  have  sardonyx  and  hyacinth  stones,  and  stones  of  chalce- 
dony, and  I  will  give  them  all  to  3^ou,  all,  and  other  things 
will  I  add  to  them.  The  King  of  the  Indies  has  but  even 
now  sent  me  four  fans  fashioned  from  the  feathers  of  parrots, 
and  the  King  of  Numidia  a  garment  of  ostrich  feathers.  I 
have  a  crystal,  into  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  a  woman  to 
look,  nor  may  young  men  behold  it  until  they  have  been 
beaten  with  rods.  In  a  coffer  of  nacre  I  have  three  wondrous 
turquoises.  He  who  wears  them  on  his  forehead  can  imagine 
things  which  are  not,  and  he  \\ho  carries  them  in  his  hand 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE       85 

can  make  women  sterile.  These  are  great  treasures  above 
all  price.  They  are  treasures  without  price.  But  this  is  not 
all.  In  an  ebony  coffer  I  have  two  cups  of  amber,  that  are 
like  apples  of  gold.  If  an  enemy  pour  poison  into  these  cups 
they  become  like  an  apple  of  silver.  In  a  coffer  encrusted 
with  amber  I  have  sandals  encrusted  with  glass.  I  have 
mantles  that  have  been  brought  from  the  land  of  the  Seres, 
and  bracelets  decked  about  with  carbuncles  and  with  jade 
that  came  from  the  city  of  Euphrates.  .  .  .  What  desirest 
thou  more  than  this,  Salome  ?  Tell  me  the  thing  that  thou 
desirest,  and  I  will  give  it  thee.  All  that  thou  askest  I  will 
give  thee,  save  one  thing.  I  will  give  thee  all  that  is  mine, 
save  one  life.  I  will  give  the  mantle  of  the  High  Priest.  I 
will  give  thee  the  veil  of  the  sanctuary." 

The  mere  naming  of  jewels  and  treasures  in  a  highly 
wrought  prose-poem  might  in  itself  be  as  innocent  as  one 
of  Walt  Whitman's  catalogues  of  implements,  but  even  re- 
moved from  its  context  there  is  something  unusual  and  even 
sinister  about  Herod's  offerings  to  Salome.  The  whole  work 
is  coloured  by  a  hunger  for  sensation  that  has  all  the 
sterility  of  an  excessive  civilisation. 

In  the  essays  collected  in  the  book  called  Intentions^ 
Oscar  Wilde  has  let  us  into  the  secret  which  produced  these 
works.  That  secret  is  an  attempt  to  push  Gautier's  idea 
of  art  for  art's  sake,  and  Whistler's  idea  of  art  as  Nature's 
exemplar,  to  their  logical  conclusions.  He  outdoes  his 
masters  with  the  obvious  intention  of  going  one  better. 
Throughout  the  whole  of  his  life  he  was  filled  with  a  boyish 
enthusiasm  which  took  the  form  of  self-delight.  "His 
attitude  was  dramatic,"  says  Arthur  Symons,  "and  the 
whole  man  was  not  so  much  a  personality  as  an  attitude. 
Without  being  a  sage,  he  maintained  the  attitude  of  a  sage  ; 
without  being  a  poet,  he  maintained  the  attitude  of  a  poet ; 
without  being  an  artist  he  maintained  the  attitude  of  an 
artist."  It  is  certainly  true  that  his  intellect  was  dramatic, 
and  it  is  equally  true  that  he  was  fond  of  adopting  attitudes, 
but  it  is  far  from  true  to  name  three  of  his  favourite  attitudes 


86  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

and  to  say  that  these  began  and  ended  in  the  mere  posture. 
For  Oscar  Wiide  was  both  poet  and  sage  and  artist.  He 
may  not  have  been  a  great  poet,  he  may  not  have  been  a 
great  sage,  he  may  not,  which  is  more  doubtful,  have  been  a 
great  artist,  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  attitudes  repre- 
senting those  faculties  and  adopted  by  him  were  the  symbols 
of  demonstrable  phases  of  his  genius.  Whilst  always  longing 
to  express  himself  in  literary  forms,  and  knowing  himself  to 
be  capable  of  doing  so,  he  found  it  easier  to  express  himself 
through  the  living  personality.  Writing  bored  him,  and 
those  who  knew  him  are  agreed  that  he  did  not  put  the  best 
of  himself  into  his  work.  "It  is  personalities,"  he  said, 
"  not  principles,  that  move  the  age." 

Throughout  the  whole  of  his  life  he  tried  to  live  up,  not 
to  his  blue-and-white  china,  but  to  an  idea  of  personality  ; 
and  the  whole  of  his  philosophy  is  concerned  Avith  an  attempt 
to  prove  that  personality,  even  though  it  destroy  itself, 
should  be  the  final  work  of  art.  Indeed,  in  his  opinion,  art 
itself  was  nothing  but  the  medium  of  personality.  His  atti- 
tudes thus  become  details  in  the  art  of  personality.  If  they 
had  no  basis  in  fact,  Oscar  Wilde  would  have  been  no  more 
than  an  actor  playing  a  part  in  a  work  of  art,  but  although 
he  played,  played  at  intellectual  dandy,  much  as  a  boy  will 
play  at  pirates,  he  was  playing  a  part  in  the  drama  of  life  ; 
and  he  adopted  the  attitude  of  dandy  in  response  to  as  real 
an  emotion  at  least  as  that  which  inspires  a  boy  to  adopt  the 
attitude  of  pirate.  What  he  seemed  to  be  doing  all  the  time 
was  translating  life  into  art  through  himself.  His  books 
were  but  incidents  in  this  process.  He  always  valued  life 
more  than  art,  and  only  appreciated  the  latter  when  its  reflex 
action  contributed  something  to  his  sensations  ;  but  because 
he  had  thought  himself  into  the  position  of  one  who  trans- 
mutes life  into  art,  he  fell  into  the  error  of  imagining  art  to 
be  more  important  than  life.  And  art  for  him  was  not  only 
those  formal  and  plastic  things  which  we  call  the  fine  arts  ; 
it  embraced  all  luxurious  artificialities.  "All  art  is  quite 
useless,"  he  said.  Such  an  attitude  was  in  itself  artificial ; 
but  with  Oscar  Wilde  this  artificialism  lacked  any  progressive 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE       87 

element :  it  was  sufficient  in  itself ;  in  short,  it  ended  in 
itself,  and  not  in  any  addition  to  personal  power.  Oscar 
Wilde  never,  for  instance,  dreamt  of  evolving  into  a  god  ; 
he  dreamt  of  evolving  into  a  master  of  sensation,  a  hai*p  re- 
sponding luxuriously  to  every  impression.  This  he  became, 
or  rather,  this  he  always  was,  and  it  explained  the  many 
quite  consistent  charges  of  plagiarism  that  were  always  being 
brought  against  him,  and  it  may  explain  his  insensate  plunge 
into  forbidden  sin,  his  conversion  and  his  relapse.  He  lived 
for  the  mood,  but  whatever  that  mood  brought  him,  whether 
it  was  the  ideas  of  others  or  the  perversities  of  what  is  impish 
in  life,  he  made  them  his  ovm.  What  he  stole  from  Whistler, 
Pater,  Balzac,  Gautier  and  Baudelaire,  whilst  remaining 
recognisably  derivative,  had  added  unto  them  something 
which  their  originals  did  not  possess.  He  mixed  pure  wines, 
as  it  were,  and  created  a  new  complex  beverage,  not  perhaps 
for  quaffing,  but  a  sort  of  liqueur,  or,  rather,  a  cocktail,'  with 
a  piquant  and  original  flavour  not  ashamed  of  acknowledging 
the  flavours  of  its  constituents. 

This,  then,  was  in  reality  an  attitude  towards  life,  and  not 
an  empty  pose.  I  do  not  think  tliat  Oscar  Wilde  had  any 
hope  of  fmding  anything  absolute  ;  he  was  born  far  too  late 
in  the  nineteenth  century  for  that.  He  had  no  purpose  in 
life  save  play.  He  Avas  the  playboy  of  the  Nineties  ;  and, 
like  the  hero  of  John  Millington  Synge's  drama,  he  was 
subject  to  the  intimidation  of  flatter}'.  Naturally  inclined 
to  go  one  better  than  his  master,  he  was  also  inclined  to 
please  his  admirers  and  astonish  his  enemies  by  going  one 
better  than  himself,  and  as  this  one  better  generally  meant 
in  his  later  life  one  more  extravagance,  one  further  abandon- 
ment, it  resulted,  from  the  point  of  view  of  convention,  in 
his  going  always  one  worse.  Repetition  of  this  whim  turned 
per\'ersity  into  a  habit,  and  the  growing  taunt  of  those  who 
knew  or  suspected  his  serious  perversions  drove  him  into  the 
final  perversion  of  deliberately  courting  tragedy,  much  as 
the  mouse  is  charmed  back  into  the  clutches  of  the  cat  after 
it  has  apparently  been  given  a  loophole  of  retreat.  It  would 
not  have  been  cowardice  if  Oscar  Wilde  had  escaped  wliile 


88  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

he  had  the  chance,  and  it  was  not  bravery  that  made  him 
blind  to  that  chance  ;  he  was  bemused  by  his  own  attitude. 
Afterwaids,  he  learnt  the  meaning  of  pain,  and  he  arrived  at 
a  conclusion  similar  to  that  of  Nietzsche.  But  it  was  not 
until  afterwards.  And  although  he  found  consolation  in 
Christian  mysticism  whilst  in  prison,  and  again  on  his  death- 
bed, we  shall  never  know  with  what  subtle  jo}^  he  permitted 
his  owTi  destruction  during  the  intervening  period.  Looked 
at  from  such  a  point  of  view,  his  books  help  in  explaining 
the  man.  The  best  of  them,  Intentions,  The  House  of  Pome- 
granates, The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest,  The  Soul  of  Man, 
The  Ballad  of  Beading  Gaol,  De  Profundis,  and  a  handful 
of  epigrams  and  short  parables  which  he  called  Prose  Poems, 
must,  it  seems  to  me,  take  a  definite  place  in  English  litera- 
ture as  the  expression  and  explanation  of  the  type  Wilde 
represented. 

This  type  was  not  created  by  Oscar  Wilde  :  it  was  very 
general  throughout  Europe  at  the  close  of  the  last  century, 
and  he  represented  only  one  version  of  it.  Probably  to  him- 
self he  imagined  himself  to  approximate  somewhat  to  the 
cynical  idlers  of  his  plays  :  Lord  Goring  in  An  Ideal  Husband, 
Lord  Darlington  in  Lady  Windermere's  Fan,  Lord  Illingworth 
in  A  Woman  of  No  Importance  and  Algernon  Moncrieff  in 
The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest  may  be  partial  portraits  of 
the  sort  of  personal  impression  their  author  imagined  he  was 
creating  in  the  fashionable  world.  But  he  drew  fuller  por- 
traits of  himself  in  his  novel.  Lord  Henry  AVotton  and 
Dorian  Gray  represent  two  sides  of  Oscar  Wilde  ;  they  are 
both  experimenters  in  life,  both  epicureans  and  both  seeking 
salvation  by  testing  life  even  to  destruction.  The  Picture  of 
Dorian  Gray  is  really  a  moral  tale,  and  that  also  is  character- 
istic of  the  genius  of  Oscar  Wilde,  for  at  no  period  of  his  life 
had  he  the  courage  of  his  amorality.  He  was  always  haunted 
by  the  still  small  voice  which  broke  bounds  and  expressed 
itself  freely  in  De  Profundis.  And  whilst  reading  his  books, 
or  listening  to  his  plays,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  their 
very  playfulness  is  but  the  cloak  of  tragedy.  The  decadent, 
weary  with   known  joys  and  yearning  for  new  sensations, 


OSCAR  WILDE  :  THE  LAST  PHASE        89 

perpetually  being  rebuked  by  the  clammy  hand  of  exhausted 
desu-e,  must  needs  laugh.  Oscar  Wilde  laughed,  and  made 
us  laugh,  not  by  his  wit  so  much  as  by  his  humour,  that 
humour  which  dances  over  his  plays  and  epigi-ams  with  the 
flutter  of  sheet  lightning,  compelling  response  where  response 
is  possible,  but  always  inconsequent  and  always  defying 
analysis.  It  reached  its  height  in  The  Importance  of  Being 
Earnest,  a  comedy  so  novel,  so  irresistibly  amusing  and  so 
perfect  in  its  way  that  discussion  of  it  ends  in  futility,  like 
an  attempt  to  explain  the  bouquet  of  old  Cognac  or  the 
iridescence  of  opals.  It  is  the  moonshine  of  genius.  The 
still  small  voice  in  him,  of  which  his  lambent  humour  is  the 
mask,  is  stronger  in  The  Soul  of  Man  and  The  Ballad  of  Read- 
ing Gaol,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  had  he  lived  the  even 
life  that  he  began  to  live  on  the  bleak  coast  of  Normandy 
after  his  release  from  prison,  this  underlying  strain  in  his 
character  would  have  turned  him  into  a  social  reformer. 
His  harrowing  letters  on  prison  conditions  point  to  some 
such  destiny  especially  when  associated  ^\ith  his  philosophic 
dash  into  the  realm  of  Socialism.  As  it  was,  such  humane 
zeal  as  he  possessed  ended  on  the  one  side  in  sublime  pity 
and  on  the  other  in  the  dream  of  a  Utopia  for  dandies. 

Dandy  of  intellect,  dandy  of  manners,  dandy  of  dress, 
Oscar  Wilde  strutted  through  the  first  half  of  the  Nineties 
and  staggered  through  the  last.  So  pleased  was  he  with 
himself,  so  interested  was  he  in  the  pageant  of  life,  that  he 
devoted  his  genius,  in  so  far  as  it  could  be  public,  to  telling 
people  all  about  it.  His  genius  expressed  itself  best  in 
stories  and  conversation,  and  he  was  always  the  centre  of 
each.  The  best  things  in  his  plays  are  the  conversations : 
the  flippancies  of  dandies  and  the  garrulities  of  delightful 
shameless  dowagers.  His  best  essays  are  colloquies  ;  those 
that  are  not  depend  for  effect  upon  epigrams  and  aphorisms, 
originally  dropped  by  himself  in  the  dining-rooms  and  salons 
of  London  and  Paris.  When  he  was  not  conversing  he  was 
telling  stories,  and  these  stories,  perhaps,  the  Prose  Poems, 
The  House  of  Pomegranates  and  The  Happy  Prince,  will  out- 
live even  his  wittiest  paradox.     Salome  is  more  a  story,  a 


90  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

"  prose-poem,"  than  a  play,  and  it  is  more,  to  use  for  once 
the  method  of  inversion  in  which  lie  dehghted,  an  epigram 
tlian  a  story.  One  can  imagine  the  glee  with  which  Oscar 
Wilde  worked  up  to  tlie  anti-climax,  to  the  moment  after 
Salome  has  kissed  tlu;  dead  mouth  of  Jokanaan,  and  Herod 
has  turned  round  and  said  :  "  Kill  that  woman."  One  can 
taste  his  own  delight  whilst  writing  the  final  stage  instruc- 
tion :  "The  soldiers  run  forward  and  crush  beneath  their 
shields  Salome,  daughter  of  Herodias,  Princess  of  Judcea. " 
But  more  easih'^  still  can  one  imagine  this  remarkable  man 
for  ever  telling  himself  an  eternal  tale  in  which  he  himself 
is  hero. 


CHAPTER  V 

AUBREY   BEARDSLEY 

THE  appearance  of  Aubrey  Beardsley  in  1893  was 
the  most  extraordinary  event  in  English  art  since 
the  appearance  of  William  Blake  a  little  more  than 
a  himdred  years  earlier.  With  that,  however,  or  almost 
so,  the  resemblance  ends.  Blake  was  born  "  out  of  his  due 
time,"  not  alone  because  he  baffled  the  understanding  of 
his  age,  but  because  his  age  scarcely  knew  of  his  existence. 
Beardsley,  on  the  other  hand,  was  born  into  an  age  of  easy 
publicity  ;  and  that  circumstance,  combined  with  the  fact 
that  he  was  so  peculiarly  of  his  period,  instantly  made  him  a 
centre  of  discussion,  a  subject  for  regard  and  reprehension. 
Temporally  he  was  so  appropriate  that  an  earlier  appearance 
would  have  been  as  premature  as  a  later  would  have  been 
tardy.  It  was  inevitable  that  he  should  have  come  with 
The  Yellow  Book  and  gone  with  The  Savoy.  The  times  de- 
manded his  presence.  He  was  as  necessary  a  corner-stone 
of  the  Temple  of  the  Perverse  as  Oscar  Wilde,  but,  unlike 
that  great  literary  figure  of  the  decadence  in  England,  his 
singularity  makes  him  a  prisoner  for  ever  in  those  Eighteen 
Nineties  of  which  he  was  so  inevitable  an  expression.  He 
alone  of  all  the  interesting  figures  of  those  years  is  almost  as 
sterile  in  art  as  he  is  local  in  point  of  time.  Oscar  Wilde 
added  delicate  raillery  and  novel  lightness  to  drama,  and  a 
new  accent  to  conversation ;  Francis  Thompson  reintro- 
duced Christian  mysticism  into  English  poetry ;  Ernest 
Dowson  linked  an  eternal  and  bitter  anguish  of  the  soul  with 
modern  emotion ;  and  Arthur  Symons,  Max  Beerbohm, 
John  Davidson,  G.  S.  Street  and  Richard  Le  Galliemie 
reasserted  the  significance  of  urbane  things  ;  all  revealed 
something  that  was  universal — if  only  the  universality  of 

91 


.92  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

taverns  and  courtesans.  But  Aubrey  Beardsley  is  the  unique 
expression  of  the  most  luiiquc  mood  of  tlie  Nineties,  a  mood 
which  was  so  hniitcd  that  his  art  would  have  been  untrue 
had  it  been  either  imitable  or  universal.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  neither  ;  all  who  have  called  Beardsley  master 
have  destroyed  themselves,  and  his  work  was  archaic  even 
before  he  died. 

As  a  man,  or  rather  as  a  boy — for  although  Beardsley 
reached  manhood  in  years  he  hardly  lost  a  certain  boyish 
attitude  towards  life — he  was  admired  for  his  gaiety  of  heart, 
unabashed  joy  in  his  work,  and  good-fellowship.  He  was 
born  at  Brighton  on  21st  August  1872,  and  died  of  tuber- 
culosis in  1898.  From  his  seventh  year  his  health  was 
delicate,  and  pulmonary  troubles  began  to  be  feared  as  early 
as  1881.  He  had  passed  through  the  first  stages  of  education 
before  this,  first  at  a  kindergarten  at  Brighton,  and  then  at 
a  preparatory  school  at  Hurstpierpoint.  But  with  the 
appearance  of  lung  trouble  he  was  removed  to  Epsom.  The 
first  artistic  influence  of  his  early  life  was  music,  and  so  pro- 
ficient did  he  become  as  an  executant  that,  in  1883,  he  joined 
his  family  in  London,  and  appeared  on  the  concert  platform 
with  his  sister  (Miss  Mabel  Beardsley,  who  became  an  actress) 
as  an  infant  prodigy.  His  real  tastes,  however,  were  liter- 
ary, and,  although  as  a  child  almost  he  could  talk  with  some- 
thing like  authority  upon  music,  he  preferred  to  read  books 
and  dream  in  words  and  phrases.  In  1884  he  and  his  sister 
were  living  in  Brighton  again,  and  he  began  to  attend  the 
Brighton  Grammar  School  as  a  day  boy.  Although  his 
tastes  ran  in  the  direction  of  books,  he  had  innate  skill  with 
the  pencil,  and  was  influenced  by  the  drawings  of  Kate 
Greenaway.  When  quite  young  he  made  a  little  money  by 
decorating  menu  and  invitation  cards,  but  his  drawing  first 
attracted  particular  attention  at  the  (Trammar  School,  where 
the  masters  were  interested  and  amused  by  his  caricatures 
of  themselves,  and  his  earliest  work  thus  came  to  appear  in 
Past  and  Present,  the  magazine  of  that  school.  In  1888  he 
entered  an  architect's  office  in  London,  but  apparently  re- 
mained there  for  no  great  length  of  time,  for  in  1889  he  was 


naiiliS?^-' 


J^ 


Al'BRKV     lir.AKDSl.KV 
/>')'  Max  Hi-crl'ohii! 


AUBREY  BEARDSLEY  93 

employed  as  a  clerk  in  the  Guardian  Life  &  Fire  Assurance 
Company.  Whilst  in  that  office  he  devoted  his  spare  time 
to  reading  and  drawing,  and  his  passion  for  books  led  him, 
as  it  has  led  many  another  city  clerk  of  literary  tastes,  to 
the  well-known  bookshop  of  Messrs  Jones  &  Evans,  in  Queen 
Street,  Cheapside,  and  here  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Mr  Frederick  H.  Evans,  whose  enthusiasm  for  his  drawings 
was  the  herald  of  Beardsley's  fame.  Thus  with  the  dawn  of 
the  Nineties  came  whispers  of  the  appearance  of  a  new  and 
remarkable  artist. 

Tlirough  the  intervention  of  Mr  Evans,  Aubrey  Beardsley 
came  into  contact  with  the  publishing  world,  and  Mr  J.  M. 
Dent  commissioned  him  to  illustrate  the  now  famous  two- 
volume  edition  of  the  Morte  (T Arthur,  the  publication  of 
which  in  monthly  parts,  beginning  June  1893,  was  Beardsley's 
debut  as  a  book  illustrator.  About  this  time  he  met 
Joseph  Pennell,  who  introduced  him  to  the  public  in  an 
enthusiastic  article,  illustrated  by  several  characteristic 
drawings,  in  the  first  number  of  The  Studio  (April  1893),  the 
cover  of  which  was  also  designed  by  Beardsley.  Interest  in 
the  new  artist  was  immediate  and  clamorous ;  and  his  work 
began  to  appear  in  many  books.  Messrs  Dent  &  Company, 
Messrs  Elkin  Mathews  &  John  Lane,  INIessrs  Longmans 
&  Company  and  Mr  David  Nutt,  all  published  books 
decorated  by  him.  In  1894  he  was  appointed  art  editor  of 
The  Yellow  Book,  and  then  the  "  Beardsley  Craze  "  began 
in  earnest.  Beardsley  posters  appeared  on  the  hoardings, 
and  the  man-in- the- street  became  further  acquainted  with 
the  work  of  this  marvellous  boy  through  the  columns  of 
the  popular  newspapers  and  magazines.  The  "'  Beardsley 
Woman  "  was  an  absorbing  topic  ;  and  the  young  artist  was 
belauded  and  belittled  to  exasperation. 

Never  before  did  artist  achieve  such  immediate  fame.  He 
himself  appreciated  it  all  with  unabashed  delight,  and  worked 
harder  and  harder  to  meet  the  increasing  demands  upon  his 
genius.  Conscious,  as  John  Keats  had  been,  that  "  mortality 
weighed  heavy  upon  him,"  he  yet  clung  to  life  with  the  fatal 
hopefulness  of  the  consumptive.     He  is  said  also  to  have 


94  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

worked  feverishly,  as  though  conscious  of  pending  doom, 
but,  although  fully  aware  of  his  fatal  disease,  it  was  not  until 
the  last  year  of  his  life  that  he  realised  the  nearness  of  death. 
As  late  as  September  1897,  when  he  had  actually  got  as  far 
as  France  on  what  proved  to  be  his  funeral  journey  to  the 
south,  he  was  buoyed  up  by  the  hope  of  a  complete  recovery. 
'*  Dr  P.  has  just  put  me  through  a  very  careful  examination," 
he  Avrote  to  the  Rev.  John  Gray.  "  He  thinks  I  have  made 
quite  a  marvellous  improvement  since  he  saw  me  at  the 
Windsor  Hotel,  and  that  if  I  continue  to  take  care  I  shall  get 
quite  well  and  have  a  new  life  before  me." 

A  little  more  than  seven  months  before,  Aubrey  Beardsley 
had  been  received  into  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  his  pub- 
lished letters,  co\'ering  the  period  of  preparation  before  his 
conversion,  and  closing  a  little  less  than  three  weeks  before 
his  death,  are  full  of  a  sweetness  which  is  heroic  in  so  passion- 
ate a  lover  of  life.  In  the  introduction  to  The  Last  Letters  of 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  those  "  noted  letters  "  in  which,  as  Arthur 
Symons  has  said,  "we  see  a  man  die,"  Father  Gray  says: 
''  Aubrey  Beardsley  might,  had  he  lived,  have  risen,  whether 
tlirough  his  art  or  otherwise,  spiritually  to  a  height  from 
which  he  could  command  the  horizon  he  was  created  to  scan. 
As  it  was,  the  long  anguish,  the  increasing  bodily  helpless- 
ness, the  extreme  necessity  in  which  someone  else  raises  one's 
hand,  turns  one's  head,  showed  the  slowly  dying  man  things 
he  had  not  seen  before.  He  came  face  to  face  with  the  old 
riddle  of  life  and  death  ;  the  accustomed  supports  and  re- 
sources of  his  being  were  removed  ;  his  soul,  thus  denuded, 
discovered  needs  unstable  desires  had  hitherto  obscm-cd  ; 
he  submitted,  like  Watteau  his  master,  to  the  Catholic 
Church."  He  was  buried  after  a  Mass  at  the  cathedral 
at  Mentonc,  in  the  hillside  Catholic  cemetery  of  that  town  ; 
his  grave  on  the  edge  of  the  hill  is  hewn  out  of  the  rock ; 
"  a  true  sepulchre,  with  an  arched  opening  and  a  stone 
closing  it." 

It  is  recorded  that  Aubrey  Beardsley  was  greatly  impressed 
by  the  wordless  play,  L'Enfant  Prodigue,  which  delighted 
the  playgoers  of  the  Nineties,  and  one  can  well  imagine  how 


AUBREY  BEARDSLEY  95 

the  youthful  artist  found  in  the  spacious  silences  of  that 
novel  production  an  echo  of  himself.  Doubtless  he  saw  in  it 
something  of  his  own  vision  of  life  translated  into  another 
form,  but  doubtless  he  felt  also,  but  this  time  subconsciously, 
a  response  to  that  Pierrot  note  in  his  own  soul  which  has 
been  indicated  by  Arthur  Symons.  But  Beardsley  was  some- 
thing more  than  that,  something  more  pm-poseful,  although 
his  early  death  left  his  purpose  unrealised.  His  youth  made 
him  the  infant  prodigy  of  the  decadence  ;  and  the  Pierrot  in 
him  was  an  attitude,  and  even  then  it  was  a  bigger  attitude 
than  that  of  its  namesake.  Innocence  always  frustrated  the 
desires  of  Pierrot  and  left  him  desolate,  but  Aubrey  Beardsley 
introduced  into  art  the  desolation  of  experience,  the  ennui 
of  sin.  It  required  the  intensity  of  youth  to  express  such  an 
attitude,  although  the  attitude  savours  not  of  the  conven- 
tional idea  of  youth,  but  of  the  conventional  idea  of  experi- 
enced age.  Perhaps  it  is  only  the  young  who  are  ever  really 
morbid,  for  youth  more  than  age  regrets  that  "  spring  should 
vanish  with  the  rose."  But  youth  that  has  heard  the  beat- 
ings of  the  wings  of  death,  as  Beardsley  must  have  done, 
grows  so  hungry  for  the  joys  and  beauties  of  spring  that  it 
becomes  aged  by  the  very  intensity  of  desire.  Keats,  like 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  suffered  such  hunger,  because,  like 
Beardsley,  whom  he  resembles  so  much  temperamentally, 
he  loved  as  he  said  "  the  mighty  abstract  idea  of  Beauty  in 
all  things."  And  with  both  poet  and  artist  there  was  acute 
consciousness  of  the  evanescence  of  Beauty  : 

"  Beauty  that  must  die  ; 
And  Joy,  whose  hand  is  ever  at  his  Hps 

Bidding  adieu,  and  aching  Pleasure  nigh. 
Turning  to  poison  while  the  bee-mouth  sips." 

But  that  reality  is  not  only  the  attitude  of  hypersensitive 
youth  towards  life  ;  it  is  the  attitude  of  self-conscious  civilisa- 
tion. And  how  like  modern  civilisation  is  Max  Beerbohm's 
summary  of  Aubrey  Beardsley 's  temperament  ?  "  He  knew 
that  life  was  short,  and  so  he  loved  every  hour  of  it  with  a 
kind  of  jealous  intensity.     He  had  that  absolute  power  of 


96  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

'  living  in  the  moment  '  which  is  given  only  to  the  doomed 
man — that  kind  of  seir-conscious  happiness,  the  delight  in 
still  clinging  to  the  thing  whose  worth  you  have  only  realised 
through  the  knowledge  that  it  will  soon  be  taken  from  you. 
For  him,  as  for  the  schoolboy  whose  holidays  are  near  their 
close,  e\cry  hour — every  minute,  even — had  its  value.  His 
drawing,  his  compositions  in  prose  and  in  verse,  his  reading 
— these  things  were  not  enough  to  satisfy  his  strenuous  de- 
mands on  life.  He  was  himself  an  accomplished  musician, 
he  was  a  great  frequenter  of  concerts,  and  seldom,  when  he 
was  in  London,  did  he  miss  a  '  Wagner  night  '  at  Covent 
Garden.  He  lo\cd  dining  out,  and,  in  fact,  gaiety  of 
any  kind.  His  restlessness  was,  I  suppose,  one  of  the 
symptoms  of  his  malady.  He  was  always  most  content 
where  there  was  the  greatest  noise  and  bustle,  the  largest 
number  of  people,  and  the  most  brilliant  light."  That  is 
a  picture  of  the  age  as  well  as  of  its  epitome,  Aubrey 
Beardsley. 

In  spite,  however,  of  this  hunger  for  life,  this  restless  desire 
for  more  and  more  vitality,  he  contrived  to  retain  a  natm'al 
sweetness  in  his  dealings  with  his  fellow-men  which  has  left 
many  happy  memories,  some  of  which  have  been  recorded. 
When  Robert  Ross  first  met  Beardsley  in  1892  he  was  so 
overcome  by  his  "  strange  and  fascinating  originality  "  that 
he  neglected  the  portfolio  of  drawings  which  the  young  artist 
had  with  him.  "He  was  an  intellectual  Marccllus  suddenly 
matured,"  says  this  chronicler.  "His  rather  long  brown 
hair,  instead  of  being  cbouriffe,  as  the  ordinary  genius  is 
expected  to  wear  it,  Avas  brushed  smoothly  and  flatly  on  his 
head  and  over  part  of  his  immensely  high  and  narrow  brow. 
His  face  even  then  was  terribly  drawn  and  emaciated. 
Except  in  his  maimer,  I  do  not  think  his  general  appearance 
altered  very  much  in  spite  of  his  ill-health  and  suffering, 
borne  with  such  unparalleled  resignation  and  fortitude ;  he 
always  had  a  most  delightful  smile,  both  for  friends  and 
strangers." 

Arthur  Symons  suggests  that  any  eccentricities  or  diffi- 
culties of  character  possessed  by  Beardsley  were  easily  for- 


AUBREY  BEARDSLEY  97 

gotten  in  his  personal  charm  :  "  He  seemed  to  have  read 
everything,  and  had  his  preferences  as  adroitly  in  order,  as 
wittily  in  evidence,  as  almost  any  man  of  letters  ;  indeed,  he 
seemed  to  know  more,  and  was  a  sounder  critic,  of  books 
than  of  pictm-es  ;  with  perhaps  a  deeper  feeling  for  music 
than  for  either.  His  conversation  had  a  peculiar  kind  of 
brilliance,  different  in  order  but  scarcely  inferior  in  quality 
to  that  of  any  other  contemporary  master  of  that  art ;  a 
salt,  whimsical  dogmatism,  equally  full  of  convinced  egoism 
and  of  imperturbable  keen-sightedness.  Generally  choosing 
to  be  paradoxical  and  vehement  on  behalf  of  any  enthusiasm 
of  the  mind,  he  was  the  dupe  of  none  of  his  own  statements, 
or  indeed  of  his  own  enthusiasms,  and,  really,  very  coldly 
impartial.  I  scarcely  accept  even  his  own  judgment  of  him- 
self, in  spite  of  his  petulant,  amusing  self-assertion,  so  full 
of  the  childishness  of  genius.  He  thought,  and  was  right 
in  thinking,  very  highly  of  himself;  he  admired  himself 
enormously  ;  but  his  intellect  would  never  allow  itself  to  be 
deceived  even  about  his  own  accomplishments."  "I  re- 
member that  when  I  first  saw  him,"  says  Max  Beerbohm, 
"  I  thought  I  had  never  seen  so  utterly  frail  a  creature — he 
looked  more  like  a  ghost  than  a  living  man.  He  was  then,  I 
believe,  already  in  an  advanced  stage  of  pulmonary  con- 
sumption. When  I  came  to  know  him  better,  I  realised 
that  it  was  only  by  sheer  force  of  nerves  that  he  contrived  to 
sustain  himself.  He  was  always,  whenever  one  saw  him,  in 
the  highest  spirits,  full  of  fun  and  of  fresh  theories  about  life 
and  art.  But  one  could  not  help  feeling  that  as  soon  as  he 
were  alone  he  would  sink  down,  fatigued  and  listless,  with 
all  the  spirit  gone  out  of  him.  One  felt  that  his  gaiety 
resulted  from  a  kind  of  pride,  and  was  only  assumed,  as  one 
should  say  in  company."  Another  friend  of  the  artist, 
H.  C.  Marillier,  writes  :  "  Poor  Beardsley  !  His  death  has 
removed  a  quaint  and  amiable  personality  from  among  us  ; 
a  butterfly  who  played  at  being  serious,  and  yet  a  busy 
worker  who  played  at  being  a  butterfly.  Outwardly,  he 
lived  in  the  sunshine,  airing  bright  wings.  Inwardly  no 
one  can  tell  how  he  suffered  or  strove.     It  is  well  to  avoid 


98  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

self-righteousness  in  judging  him.     As  the  wise  pastrycook 
says  in  Cyrano, 

"  '  fourmi  n'insulte  pas  ces  divines  cigales.'  '-'■ 

But  there  is  httlc  doubt  that  Aubrey  Beardsley  did  take 
his  work  very  seriously,  boyish  as  he  was,  dandy  as  he  was, 
butterfly  as  he  was.  He  loved  praise  and  approbation  as 
all  men  do ;  but  when  he  won  the  frank  appreciation  of 
an  acknowledged  master,  such  as  Whistler,  as  eventually  he 
did,  Beardsley  showed  his  own  sincerity  and  earnestness  by 
tears.  The  story  is  told  very  simply  and  very  beautifully 
by  Elizabeth  and  Joseph  Pennell  in  The  Life  of  James 
McNeill  Whistler : 

"  Whistler  met  Beardsley  and  got  to  like  not  only  him,  as 
everybody  did,  but  his  work.  One  night  when  Whistler  was 
with  us,  Beardsley  turned  up,  as  always  when  he  went  to 
see  anyone,  with  his  portfolio  of  his  latest  work  under  his 
arm.  This  time  it  held  the  illustrations  for  The  Bape  of  the 
Lock,  which  he  had  just  made.  Whistler,  who  always  saw 
everything  that  was  being  done,  had  seen  The  Yellow  Book, 
started  in  189 J-,  and  he  disliked  it  as  much  as  he  then  disliked 
Beardsley,  who  was  the  art  editor  ;  but  he  had  also  seen  the 
illustrations  to  Salome,  disliking  them  too,  probably  because 
of  Oscar  Wilde  ;  he  knew  many  of  the  other  drawings,  one 
of  which,  whether  intentionally  or  unintentionally,  was  more 
or  less  a  reminiscence  of  Mrs  Whistler,  and  he  no  doubt  knew 
that  Beardsley  had  made  a  caricature  of  him  which  a  follower 
carefully  left  in  a  cab.  When  Beardsley  opened  the  port- 
folio, and  began  to  show  us  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  Whistler 
looked  at  them  first  indifferently,  then  with  interest,  then 
with  delight.  And  then  he  said  slowly  :  '  Aubrey,  I  have 
made  a  very  great  mistake — you  arc  a  very  great  artist.' 
And  the  boy  burst  out  crying.  All  Whistler  could  say,  when 
he  could  say  anything,  was  '  I  mean  it — I  mean  it — I  mean 
it.'" 

Leaving  aside  the  prodigious  elements  in  the  life  and  work 
of  Aubrey  Beardsley,  his  youth  and  early  death,  the  sudden 


The  Rape  of  the  Lock 

By  Aubrey  BeardsUy 


AUBREY  BEARDSLEY  99 

ripening  of  uninstructed  genius,  and  the  brilliant  productive- 
ness of  those  last  six  disease-ridden  years,  his  best  drawings 
stand  out  from  the  general  level  of  British  art  with  such 
sheer  audacity  as  to  compel  attention.  It  may  be  true  that 
more  than  half  of  this  distinction  is  comprised  of  the  inso- 
lence of  originality  or  of  mere  difference,  but  even  then  his 
novelties  and  differences  are  so  remarkable  as  to  be  things 
in  themselves.  Most  artists  are  generally  normal  in  their 
work,  departing  only  into  the  margin  of  the  page  of  art  by 
means  of  a  mannerism  or  so  upon  which  neither  they  nor 
their  admirers  insist  overmuch.  Aubrey  Beardsley  was  all 
mannerism ;  his  genius  all  whim.  That  is  the  explanation 
of  its  suddenness ;  its  surprise.  But  it  does  not  explain  the 
extraordinary  vision  of  humanity  associated  with  his  work. 
An  interviewer  once  asked  him  whether  he  used  models. 
"  All  humanity  inspires  me.  Every  passer-by  is  my  uncon- 
scious sitter,"  Beardsley  replied,  "  and,"  he  added,  "  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  I  really  draw  folk  as  I  see  them.  Surely  it  is 
not  my  fault  that  they  fall  into  certain  lines  and  angles." 
Contradictions  of  actuality  as  each  of  these  statements  may 
be,  they  yet  throw  light  on  Beardsley's  attitude.  Those  who 
know  his  work,  eclectic  as  it  is,  know  that  "  all  humanity  " 
did  not  inspire  it ;  that  "  every  passer-by  "  was  not  an 
"  unconscious  sitter  " ;  that  his  confession  of  drawing  folk 
as  he  saw  them  was  merely  the  art  cant  of  the  hour,  which 
he  tacitly  admits  by  the  suggestion  that  such  a  confession  is 
strange,  in  the  light  of  his  own  drawings  and  what  he  and  the 
interviewer  knew  to  be  actually  true.  It  was  not,  of  course, 
his  fault  that  these  folk  under  his  pencil  fell  into  "  certain 
lines  and  angles,"  it  was  the  natural  outcome  of  his  genius. 
But  that  genius  was  never  pictorial  in  the  realistic  sense. 
Beardsley  was  not  an  Impressionist,  like  Manet  or  Renoir, 
drawing  the  thing  as  he  saw  it ;  he  was  not  a  visionary,  like 
William  Blake,  drawing  the  thing  as  he  dreamt  it ;  he  was  an 
intellectual,  like  George  Frederick  Watts,  drawing  the  thing 
as  he  thought  it.  Aubrey  Beardsley  is  the  most  literary  of 
all  modern  artists ;  his  drawings  are  rarely  the  outcome  of 
pure  observation — they  are  largely  the  outcome  of  thought ; 


100  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

they  are  thoughts  become  pictures.  And  even  then  they  are 
rarely  if  ever  the  blossoming  of  thought  derived  from  ex- 
perience ;  they  are  the  hot-house  gro\\i;hs  of  thought  derived 
from  books,  pictures  and  music.  Beardsley  always  worked 
indoors,  without  models  and  by  artificial,  generally  candle, 
light.  On  those  rare  occasions  when  he  did  go  to  life  for 
inspiration  he  went  to  life  in  its  more  artificial  form — to 
theatres  and  salons,  to  the  Domino  Room  at  the  Cafe  Royal, 
to  the  Pavilion  at  Brighton  and  the  Casino  at  Dieppe. 

The  rococo  in  art  and  life  appealed  to  him  and  influenced 
him  in  his  finest  creative  moments.  Other  influences  are 
certainly  obvious  in  much  of  his  work  ;  something  of  the 
Japanese,  but  not  so  much  as  some  critics  have  imagined, 
nmeh  of  Watteau,  and  a  great  deal  of  Burnc- Jones,  who  early 
expressed  approval  of  the  new  artist — perchance,  as  Tenny- 
son said  of  Prince  Albert  and  King  Arthur  in  The  Idylls  of 
the  King,  "  Perchance  in  finding  there,  unconsciously,  some 
image  of  himself,"  although  the  "Beardsley  woman,"  that 
sardonic  creature,  who  looks  as  if  she  were  aways  hungering 
for  the  sensation  after  next,  might  well  have  been,  as  she 
probably  was,  at  her  inception,  a  caricature  of  the  wraith- like 
women  of  Burne-Jones.  The  wan  and  saintly  amorousness 
of  the  figures  in  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  become  cadaver- 
ous with  sin,  and  fat  with  luxury  in  the  figures  of  Aubrey 
Beardsley.  But  wherever  the  influence  of  Japanese  or 
English  sestheticism  asserts  itself  in  Beardsley 's  drawings,  it 
does  so  to  their  detriment,  as  in  the  case  of  the  illustrations 
and  decorations  of  the  Morte  d' Arthur  and  the  "  Procession 
of  Joan  of  Arc,"  although  the  influence  behind  the  decora- 
tions in  the  former  work  is  obviously  more  that  of  William 
Morris  than  of  Burne-Jones.  The  only  pictorial  influence 
which  had  a  creative  effect  upon  the  work  of  Beardsley  was 
that  of  Watteau,  under  whose  spell,  born  of  deep  sympathy 
with  the  old  master's  sophisticated  period,  Beardsley  pro- 
duced some  of  his  most  satisfying  pictures. 

Save  for  two  months  in  an  art  school,  Beardsley  had  no 
art  training.  He  was  self-taught,  and  the  so-called  influ- 
ences  require   another    name   to   describe   them   precisely. 


Pagk  Decoration  from  the  Morte  d'Arthvr 

By  Aubrey  Beard sUy 


AUBREY  BEARDSLEY  101 

They  were  studies  in  technique  ;  he  used  them  mueh  as  the 
average  art  student  uses  his  models — to  teach  himself  the 
use  of  his  materials,  and  they  were  dropped  with  the  de- 
velopment of  mastery.  Throughout  his  short  and  astonishing 
art  life,  Beardsley  was  thus  shedding  those  artistic  in- 
fluences which  appeared  to  dominate  him.  But  all  the  time 
he  added  himself  to  his  masters  :  he  was  never  dominated. 
The  rapt  and  languorous  spirituality  of  Burne-Jones  was 
translated  into  grotesque  and  leering  fleshliness — if  languor- 
ous at  all,  languorous  with  sin.  The  frozen  realities  of  Japan 
became  torrid  reflections  of  occidental  passion  expressed  in 
crisp  shadows  and  sweeps  of  line  in  black  and  white,  suggest- 
ing colours  undreamt  of  even  in  the  rainbow  East.  But 
apart  from  all  this,  and  during  the  earlier  transition  period, 
Aubrey  Beardsley  had  actually  discovered  himself.  At  a 
time  when  he  had  barely  ceased  turning  out  poor  echoes  of 
Burne-Jones  for  his  friends,  he  was  drawing  such  daringly 
original  things  as  "The  Wagnerians,"  "The  Fat  Woman," 
"The  Kiss  of  Judas,"  and  "Of  a  Neophyte,  and  how  the 
Black  Art  was  revealed  unto  him  by  the  Fiend  Asomuel." 
From  such  work  he  passed  on  to  the  decorations  for  Salome'y 
which  consummate  magnificently  his  first  period,  and  to 
those  of  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  which  gave  formal  art  a  new 
meaning  and  Beardsley  immortality. 

The  only  real  and  lasting  influence  in  the  art  of  Aubrey 
Beardsley  was  literature.  All  who  have  written  about  him 
concur  as  to  his  amazing  booklore.  He  himself  admitted 
to  having  been  influenced  by  the  writers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  "  Works  like  Congreve's  plays  appeal  far  more 
vividly  to  my  imagination  than  do  those  belonging  to  the  age 
of  Pericles,"  he  said,  in  the  interview  already  quoted.  He 
was  well  versed  in  the  literature  of  the  decadence,  and  was 
fond  of  adventuring  in  strange  and  forbidden  bookish  realms 
of  any  and  every  age.  The  romance,  Under  the  Hill,  especi- 
ally in  its  unexpurgated  form,  suggests  deep  knowledge  of 
that  literature  generally  classed  under  facetice  and  erotica 
by  the  booksellers,  and  there  are  passages  which  read  like 
romanticised    excerpts  from  the  Psychopathia   Sexualis  of 


102  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Krafft-EI)ing.  The  Last  Letters  of  Aubrey  Beardsley  reveal 
on  almost  every  page  an  extraordinary  interest  in  books, 
equalled  only  by  the  keenness  of  his  insight  into  literature. 
They  reveal  also  how  he  was  gradually  being  drawn  from  the 
literature  of  time  to  that  of  eternity.  "Heine,"  he  ^vTites, 
''  certainly  cuts  a  poor  figure  beside  Pascal.  If  Heine  is 
the  great  warning,  Pascal  is  the  great  example  to  all  artists 
and  thinkers.  He  understood  that  to  become  a  Christian  the 
man  of  letters  must  sacrifice  his  gifts,  just  as  Magdalen  must 
sacrifice  her  beauty."  And  in  the  last  letter  in  the  volume, 
less  than  three  weeks  before  his  death,  he  wrote  :  "I  have 
been  reading  a  good  deal  of  S.  Alphonsus  Liguori ;  no  one 
dispels  depression  more  than  he.  Reading  his  loving  ex- 
clamations, so  lovingly  reiterated,  it  is  impossible  to  remain 
dull  and  sullen." 

In  his  literary  predilections,  more  even  than  in  his  art, 
you  can  see  the  mind  of  Aubrey  Beardsley.  All  the  rest- 
lessness, all  the  changefulness  of  modernity  were  there.  His 
art  was  constantly  changing,  as  Oscar  Wilde's  was,  not 
necessarily  progressing,  for,  properly  understood,  Beardsley 
said  his  say  in  "The  Fat  Woman,"  just  as  the  essence  of 
Wilde  is  in  The  Harlofs  House.  All  afterwards  was  repeti- 
tion, restatement,  intensification  and  elaboration.  As  with 
all  the  work  of  the  decadence,  Aubrey  Beardsley's  repre- 
sented a  consistent  search  after  new  and  more  satisfying 
experiences  :  the  soul-ship  seeking  harbourage.  But  unlike 
so  many  decadents  he  possessed  humour.  You  hear  the 
laugh,  often  enough  satyric,  behind  his  most  sinister  design  ; 
and  there  is  something  in  Max  Beerbohm's  belief  that  many 
of  his  earlier  drawings,  which  seemed  morbid  and  horrible, 
were  the  outcome  of  a  very  natural  boyish  desire  to  shock 
conventional  folk.  But  that  does  not  explain  away  his 
imdeniable  interest  in  all  phases  of  sexual  experience. 
In  normal  youth,  this  tendency  generally  satisfies  itself  by 
absorbing  the  current  and  colloquial  variants  of,  say,  the 
stories  of  the  Decameron.  But  Beardsley  loved  the  abnormal 
and  he  invented  a  sort  of  phallic  symbolism  to  express  his 
interest  in  passionate  perversities.     His  prose  work,  Under 


AUBREY  BEARDSLEY  103 

tlie  Hilly  is  an  uncompleted  study  in  the  art  of  aberration. 
He  is  seldom  frankly  ribald,  after  the  manner  of  youth, 
although,  strangely  enough,  the  most  masterly  of  all  his 
drawings,  the  illustrations  to  the  Lysistrata,  if  it  were  not  for 
their  impish  cynicism,  are  sufficiently  Rabelaisian  to  satiate 
the  crudest  appetite  for  indecencies.  It  has  been  urged 
that  Beardsley  was  engaged  with  such  matters  as  a  satirist, 
that  his  designs  had  the  ultimate  moral  objective  of  all  satire. 
Such  apologies  would  make  of  him  an  English  Felicien  Rops. 
But  there  is  little  genuine  evidence  to  support  the  contention, 
and  what  there  is  fades  away  in  the  light  of  an  unpublished 
letter,  written  after  his  conversation  during  his  very  last 
days,  imploring  his  friends  in  a  few  tragic,  repentant  words 
to  destroy  all  indecent  drawings.  "I  implore  you,"  he 
wrote,    "  to    destroy  all   copies   of  Lysistrata   and  bawdy 

drawings.     Show  this  to and  conjure  him  to  do  same. 

By  all  that  is  holy  all  obscene  drawings."     And  the  words, 
"In  my  death  agony,"  were  added  after  the  signature. 

Aubrey  Beardsley,  although  he  died  a  saint,  represents 
a  diabolonian  incident  in  British  art.  He  was  essentially  a 
decorator ;  but  with  the  perversity  of  one  phase  of  his  genera- 
tion he  made  decoration  a  thing  in  itself.  None  of  the  books 
he  illustrated  are  illustrated  or  decorated  in  the  best  sense. 
His  designs  overpower  the  text — not  because  they  are 
greater  but  because  they  are  inappropriate,  sometimes  even 
impertinent.  The  diabolical  thumb-nail  notes  in  the  "  Bon 
Mot  "  series  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  texts. 
Wliere  the  designs  for  the  Morte  d^Arthur  approximate  to 
the  work  of  William  Morris  and  Burne- Jones  they  serve 
their  purpose,  but  where  they  reveal  the  true  Beardsley  they 
miss  the  point ;  the  Salome  drawings  seem  to  sneer  at  Oscar 
Wilde  rather  than  interpret  the  play.  The  Rape  of  the  Lock 
is  eclipsed,  not  explained,  by  Beardsley.  But,  outrageous 
as  his  decorative  comments  on  the  Lysistrata  may  be,  they 
are  at  least  logical  commentations  on  the  text  of  the  play ; 
as  are  also  the  illustrations  to  his  own  Under  the  Hill.  "No 
book  ever  gets  well  illustrated  once  it  becomes  a  classic," 
wrote  Beardsley,  but  that  does  not  explain  his  own  failure 


104  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

as  an  illustrator.  He  failed  as  an  illustrator  beeaiisc  his  art 
was  decoration  in  the  abstract :  it  lacked  the  rhythm  of 
relationship — just  as  he  himself  lacked  obvious  relationship 
with  the  decades  that  preceded  and  followed  Mm.  He  is 
entombed  in  his  period  as  his  own  design  is  absorbed  in  its 
own  firm  lines. 

But  Beardsley  as  a  fact  is  the  significant  thing,  not 
Bcardsley  as  an  artist.  It  does  not  matter  how  or  where  he 
stands  in  art,  for  he  represents  not  art  so  much  as  an  idea, 
not  an  accomplishment  so  much  as  a  mood.  The  restless, 
inquisitive,  impudent  mood  of  the  Nineties  called  him  forth, 
and  he  obeyed  and  served  and  repented. 


Tail-1'iece  I'Rom  Salome 

By  Ati/'rcy  Bcardsliy 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE   NEW   DANDYISM 


*'  The  future  belongs  to  the  dandy.     It  is  the  exquisites  who  are  going  to 
rule." — Oscar  Wilde. 

LOVE  of  town  is  a  human  passion  which  may  not  be 
suppressed  by  advocates  of  the  Simple  Life  and  the 
Return  to  Nature,  even  though  they  bedeck  their 
propaganda  with  words  of  flame.  Such  enthusiasts  can 
never  be  more  than  apostles  of  a  marginal  gospel,  attracting 
the  few  and,  perhaps,  the  ill-starred.  To  the  average  man 
they  will  be  nothing  but  curious  folk,  a  little  unbalanced — 
what  are  called  cranks.  For  human  life  gravitates  town- 
wards  ;  even  when  it  emigrates,  and  settles  in  lands  of 
prairie  and  forest,  cities  spring  up  about  it ;  nothing,  indeed, 
is  more  certain  than  the  fact  that,  at  the  touch  of  humanity, 
the  wilderness  blossoms  with  the  town.  Normal  man  has, 
however,  always  loved  to  toy  with  the  idea  of  the  country, 
with  its  whispers  of  romance  and  health.  But  during  the 
Eighteen  Nineties,  as  in  one  or  two  other  periods  in  history, 
art  threw  a  glamour  over  the  town,  and  all  the  artificial 
things  conjured  up  by  that  word.  Poets,  it  is  true,  did  not 
abandon  the  pastoral  mood,  but  they  added  to  it  an  enthusi- 
asm for  what  was  urban.  Where,  in  the  past,  they  found 
romance  only  in  wild  and  remote  places,  among  what  are 
called  natural  things,  they  now  found  romance  in  streets  and 
theatres,  in  taverns  and  restaurants,  in  bricks  and  mortar 
and  the  creations  of  artificers.  Poets  no  longer  sought  in- 
spiration in  solitude,  they  invoked  the  Muses  in  Fleet  Street 
and  the  Strand.  And  whilst  not  entirely  abandoning,  as  I 
say,  the  old  themes  which  they  have  always  and  will  always 
sing,  they  discovered  a  fresh  delight  in  more  sophisticated 
matters.     These  poets  sang  not  only  to  "  Corinna's  going 

105 


106  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

a-maying,"  but  they  found  a  subtle  joy  in  aeclaiming  "  Nora 
ol"  tlie  Pavement."  It  were  unkind  to  say  that  they  ceased 
hearing  the  morning  stars  singing  together,  but  they  certainly 
heard  also,  and  with  equal  delight,  the  "  Stars  "  of  the  music 
halls.  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  for  instance,  ceased  for  a  while 
his  consideration  of  the  lilies  of  the  field  to  consider  "  the 
Iron  Lilies  of  the  Strand  " ;  John  Davidson,  with  his 
Eclogues,  became  the  Virgil  of  Fleet  Street ;  and  Arthur 
Symons  became  the  Herrick  of  the  Theatre  of  Varieties. 

In  all  this  awakening  interest  in  urban  things,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  learn  that  London  inspired  a  renaissance  of 
wonder,  one  phase  of  which  found  sympathetic  expression  in 
Richard  Le  Gallienne's 

"  London,  London,  our  delight. 
Great  flower  that  opens  but  at  night. 
Great  city  of  the  midnight  sun. 
Whose  day  begins  when  day  is  done. 

Lamp  after  lamp  against  the  sky 
Opens  a  sudden  beaming  eye. 
Leaping  a  light  on  either  hand. 
The  iron  lilies  of  the  Strand." 

Not  that  the  wonder  of  London  was  in  any  sense  a  new 
thing,  even  in  literatiu-e.  The  capital  city  had  in.spired 
many  a  song,  and  many  a  purple  patch  of  prose.  But  the 
men  of  the  Nineties  certainly  added  a  new  meaning  to  their 
worship  of  the  great  town.  They  reasserted  the  romance  of 
London  as  an  incident  in  their  new-found  love  of  the  artificial. 
This  adoration  extended  from  streets  as  abstract  and  ador- 
able things  separately  to  the  houses  of  the  streets,  and  even, 
with  a  characteristically  delicious  thrill  of  wickedness,  to  the 
women  of  the  streets,  and,  with  the  remorseless  logic  of 
the  period,  to  the  patchouli,  the  rouge  and  the  peroxide 
of  hydrogen  which  are  among  the  media  of  the  craft  of  that 
ancient  sisterhood.  In  short,  it  was  a  characteristic  of  the 
decadence  not  to  sing  the  bloom  of  Nature  but  the  bloom  of 
cosmetics,  and,  likewise,  town  was  adored  for  its  artificial 
rather  than  its  natural  characteristics. 


THE  NEW  DANDYISM  107 

This  new  sophistication  of  the  artistic  temperament  was 
again  no  sudden  thing  ;  it  was  hnked  by  many  correspond- 
ences with  the  urbane  spirit  of  all  times,  although  it  favoured 
such  remote  forbears  as  Catullus  and  Petronius  rather  than 
the  nearer  and  more  domesticated  ancestors,  Charles  Lamb, 
Samuel  Johnson  and  Charles  Dickens.  It  was  Whistler 
who  taught  the  modern  world  how  to  appreciate  the  beauty 
and  wizardry  of  cities.  He  taught  them  by  pictures  and  he 
taught  them  by  magical  and  unforgettable  words:  "And 
when  the  evening  mist  clothes  the  riverside  with  poetry,  as 
with  a  veil,  the  poor  buildings  lose  themselves  in  the  dim 
sky,  and  the  tall  chimneys  become  campanili,  and  the  ware- 
houses are  palaces  in  the  night,  and  the  whole  city  hangs 
in  the  heavens,  and  fairy-land  is  before  us.  ..."  But 
Whistler's  revelation  was  not  for  the  sake  of  the  town,  it  was 
for  the  sake  of  art.  It  was  Oscar  Wilde,  taking  his  cue  from 
Whistler,  who  turned  the  idea  of  the  beauty  of  art  against 
natural  beauty,  into  the  artificial  against  the  natural.  He 
learnt  from  Whistler  that  trick  of  thought  which  placed 
Nature  under  an  obligation  to  Art,  Whistler's  whimsical 
sayings  about  "foolish  "  sunsets  and  "Nature  catching  up 
to  Art  "  set  Oscar  Wilde's  nimble  wit  dancing  down  the 
corridors  of  paradox.  "  What  art  really  reveals  to  us  is 
Nature's  lack  of  design,"  he  says  ;  "  her  curious  crudities, 
her  extraordinary  monotony,  her  absolutely  unfinished 
condition.  Nature  has  good  intentions,  of  course,  but,  as 
Aristotle  once  said,  she  cannot  carry  them  out.  When  I 
look  at  a  landscape  I  cannot  help  seeing  all  its  defects.  It 
is  fortunate  for  us,  however,  that  Nature  is  so  imperfect, 
as  otherwise  we  should  have  had  no  art  at  all.  Art  is  our 
spirited  protest,  our  gallant  attempt  to  teach  Nature  her 
proper  place.  .  .  .  All  bad  art  comes  from  returning  to  Life 
and  Nature,  and  elevating  them  into  ideals.  Life  and  Nature 
may  sometimes  be  used  as  part  of  Art's  rough  material,  but 
before  they  are  of  any  real  service  to  Art  they  must  be  trans- 
lated into  artistic  conventions.  .  .  .  Life  imitates  Art  far 
more  than  Art  imitates  Life.  This  results  not  merely  from 
Life's  imitative  instinct   but  from  the  fact  that  the  self- 


108  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

conscious  aim  of  Life  is  to  find  expression,  and  that  Art  offers 
it  certain  beautiful  forms  through  which  it  may  reahse  that 
energy."  But  Wilde  was  not  alone  in  upholding  such  ideas  : 
they  were  in  the  air  of  the  time,  and  found  many  exponents 
in  what  became  a  conscious  if  tentative  revolt  against 
Nature.  "  For  behold  !  "  cried  Max  Beerbohm  in,  if  not 
the  ablest,  one  of  the  most  convincing  of  his  satires,  "  the 
Victorian  era  comes  to  its  end  and  the  day  of  sancta  sirri' 
plicitas  is  quite  ended.  The  old  signs  are  here  and  the 
portents  warn  the  seer  of  life  that  we  are  ripe  for  a  new  epoch 
of  artifice.  Are  not  men  rattling  the  dice-box  and  ladies 
dipping  their  fingers  in  the  rouge-pot  ?  "  And  history  was 
induced  to  pay  tribute  to  the  mood  by  Richard  Le  Gallienne, 
who  reminded  his  age  that  the  bravest  of  men  had  worn 
corsets. 

Romance — or,  at  least,  romance  in  its  old  obvious  sense 
of  wonder  attuned  to  awe — was  not,  then,  the  final  essence 
of  this  new  interest  in  town  life  ;  although  the  older  romance 
had  also  its  exponents  during  the  fin  de  sibcle  renaissance. 
The  London  Voluntaries  of  William  Ernest  Henley  set  an 
older  and  more  virile  romanticism  to  a  new  music,  and  in  no 
poem  was  his  vigorous  music  more  vigorous  or  more  inspired 
than  in  the  lines  beginning  "  Down  through  the  ancient 
Strand,"  which  close  with  a  paean  of  ardent  appreciation, 
if  without  quite  achieving  real  ecstasy  : 

"  For  earth  and  sky  and  air. 
Are  golden  every\vhere, 
And  golden  with  a  gold  so  suave  and  fine 
The  looking  on  it  lifts  the  heart  like  wine. 
Trafalgar  Square 

(The  fountains  volleying  golden  glaze) 
Gleams  like  an  angel  market.     High  aloft 
Over  his  couchant  Lions  in  a  haze 
Shimmering  and  bland  and  soft, 
A  dust  of  chrysoprase. 
Our  Sailor  takes  the  golden  gaze 
Of  the  saluting  sun,  and  flames  superb 
As  once  he  flamed  it  on  his  ocean  round. 
The  dingy  dreariness  of  the  picture-place, 
Turned  very  nearly  bright. 


THE  NEW  DANDYISM  109 

Takes  on  a  luminous  transciency  of  grace. 

And  shows  no  more  a  scandal  to  the  ground. 

The  very  blind  man  pottering  on  the  kerb. 

Among  the  posies  and  the  ostrich  feathers 

And  the  rude  voices  touched  with  all  the  weathers 

Of  the  long,  varying  year. 

Shares  in  the  universal  alms  of  light. 

The  windows,  with  their  fleeting,  flickering  fires. 

The  height  and  spread  of  frontage  shining  sheer. 

The  quiring  signs,  the  rejoicing  roofs  and  spires — 

'Tis  El  Dorado — El  Dorado  plain, 

The  Golden  City  !     And  when  a  girl  goes  by. 

Look  !  as  she  turns  her  glancing  head, 

A  call  of  gold  is  floated  from  her  ear  ! 

Golden,  all  golden  !     In  a  golden  glory. 

Long  lapsing  down  a  golden  coasted  sky, 

The  day  not  dies  but  seems 

Dispersed  in  wafts  and  drifts  of  gold,  and  shed 

Upon  a  past  of  golden  song  and  story 

And  memories  of  gold  and  golden  dreams. '•- 

But  Henley  was  not  blind  to  the  seamy  side  of  London 
life,  to  the  grey  and  bitter  tragedy  of  a  great  city,  as  he 
proved  on  more  than  one  occasion,  and,  especially,  in  the 
poem  beginning  "  Out  of  the  poisonous  East."  Among  the 
notable  poets  who  sang  of  the  romance  of  London  after 
Henley  came  Laurence  Binyon,  with  his  London  Visions, 
which  were  inspired  by  a  quieter  and  more  reflective  muse, 
but  voicing  none  the  less  the  peculiar  qualities  of  the  London 
enthusiasm  of  the  time  : 

"  Hazily  blue  the  air,  heavy  with  dews 
The  wind  ;  and  before  me  the  cries  and  the  crowd. 
And  the  sleepless  murmur  of  wheels  ;  not  loud. 
For  a  magical  softness  all  imbrues. 
The  softness  estranges  my  sense  :  I  see  and  I  hear. 
But  know  'tis  a  vision  intangible,  shapes  that  seem. 
All  is  unreal  ;  the  sound  of  the  falling  of  feet, 
Coming  figures,  and  far-off  hum  of  the  street  ; 
A  dream,  the  gliding  hurry,  the  endless  lights. 
Houses  and  sky,  a  dream,  a  dream  !  '' 

The  newer  and  more  peculiar  sense  of  London  was  less 
general    in   its    expression.      It   sprang   more    out   of   the 


110  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

intimacies  of  life,  and  appealed  less  to  well-explored  emotions 
of  wonder  and  mystery  than  to  more  unique  poetic  moods 
of  fewer  but  by  no  means  rare  individuals.  It  was  more 
precisely  a  striving  after  reality  through  the  medium  of  tem- 
perament. This  intimate  romanticism  of  the  new  urbanity 
tended  always  towards  the  artificial.  Perhaps  it  was  al- 
most too  real  to  be  romantic,  as  it  was  too  romantic  to  be 
real.  It  was  less  the  artistic  expression  of  a  phase  of  life 
than  the  expression  of  a  phase  of  art.  It  was  really  the  art 
of  posing,  using  the  term  intellectually  to  indicate  what  was 
certainly  a  state  of  mind  rather  than  a  conceit,  for  there  is 
no  reason  why  a  pose  need  be  other  than  sincere.  The  arti- 
liciality  of  the  period  which  thus  expressed  itself  by  means  of 
the  personal  pose  was  essentially  a  form  of  dandyism,  not 
the  dandyism  which  might  or  could  express  itself  merely 
in  clothing,  but  that  dandyism  of  the  temperament  which 
found  a  true  philosopher  in  Barbey  D'Aurevilly  and,  perhaps, 
a  truer  in  Charles  Baudelaire.  The  dandyism  of  Baudelaire 
only  expressed  itself  incidentally  in  the  clothing  of  the  body. 
It  strove  tragically  enough  to  achieve  soul-sufficiency,  not 
by  tasting,  as  the  old  mystics  did,  all  the  stars  and  all  the 
heavens  in  a  crust  of  bread,  but  by  experiencing  pm'gatory 
in  every  sensation.  He  and  his  followers  were  dandies  of 
the  spirit ;  but  acute  consciousness  of  sin  bade  them  resist 
not  evil,  in  contradistinction  to  the  older  mystics  who  be- 
came dandies  of  the  spirit  because  they  resisted  evil.  The 
desire  of  Baudelaire,  as  of  all  those  who  are  in  any  way 
akin  to  him,  was  to  discover  in  life  that  ecstasy  which  is 
eternity. 

Dandyism  may,  and  generally  does,  express  itself  in 
clothes  ;  it  did  in  the  Eighteen  Nineties  express  itself  in  the 
apparel  of  many  a  self-conscious  "masher."  But,  whether 
it  expresses  itself  in  the  clothing  of  the  body  or  in  the  clothing 
of  the  mind,  it  is  generally  the  outcome  of  similar  causes. 
The  chief  of  these,  as  Barbey  D'Aurevilly  saw,  is  boredom. 
Dandyism  is  thus  a  protest  against  the  lassitude  of  soul 
which  follows  lapse  of  interest  in  the  life  of  the  hour.  "  Like 
those  philosophers,"  says  D'Aurevilly,  "who  raised  up  an 


THE  NEW  DANDYISM  111 

obligation  superior  to  the  law,  so  the  dandies  of  their  own 
authority  make  rules  that  shall  dominate  the  most  aristo- 
cratic, the  most  conservative  sets,  and  with  the  help  of  wit, 
which  is  an  acid,  and  of  grace,  which  is  a  dissolvent,  they 
manage  to  ensure  the  acceptance  of  their  changeable  rules, 
though  these  are  in  fact  nothing  but  the  outcome  of  their 
own  audacious  personalities.  Such  a  result  is  curious,  and 
flows  from  the  nature  of  things.  In  vain  does  society 
refuse  to  bend,  in  vain  do  aristocracies  admit  only  received 
opinions  ;  one  day  Caprice  arises  and  makes  its  way  through 
those  seemingly  impenetrable  grades,  which  were  really 
undermined  by  boredom."  The  revolt  against  Nature  in 
England  was  in  reality  a  revolt  against  the  ennui  of  con- 
ventions which  in  operation  acted  as  checks  upon  the  free 
movements  of  personalities  and  ideas.  D'Aurevilly  has 
observed  that  dandyism  in  recent  times  was  an  English 
product,  but  also  that  it  was  introduced  into  this  country 
originally  by  the  gallants  of  the  Restoration  who  had  lived 
in  France  during  the  time  England  was  under  the  heel  of 
the  Puritan  :  it  was,  in  fact,  the  Pagan's  reply  to  Puritanism. 
Dandyism  has  always  been  in  the  nature  of  such  a  reply. 
But  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  new  romanticism  which 
found  expression  in  the  decadence  was  also  derived  from 
France,  as  was  also  its  immediate  ancestor,  that  romantic 
movement  to  which  D'Aurevilly  belonged. 

Dandyism  of  the  intellect  was  as  much  a  characteristic  of 
Theophile  Gautier,  Charles  Baudelaire  and  Barbey  D'Aure- 
villy as  it  was  of  Whistler,  Oscar  Wilde  and  Aubrey  Beards- 
ley,  and  it  is  worth  noting  that  these  three  English-speaking 
artists  were  dandies  also  in  the  sartorial  sense.  But  the 
resemblance  to  the  innate  dandyism  of  D'Aurevilly  is  even 
more  marked  when  we  remember  his  theory  that  dandyism 
always  produced  the  unexpected — "  that  which  could  not 
logically  be  anticipated  by  those  accustomed  to  the  yoke  of 
rules. "  Unexpectedness  was  the  secret  of  half  the  originality 
of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  ;  it  was  the  salt  of  its  philosophy, 
and  the  charm  of  its  most  characteristic  art.  "  To  expect 
the  unexpected  shows  a  thoroughly  modern  intellect,"  said 


112  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Oscar  Wilde  in  his  Phrases  mid  Philosophies  for  the  Use  of 
the  Young,  a  little  work  which  is  a  veritable  philosophy  of 
dandyism.  Literature  in  the  Nineties  ran  to  epigi'ani,  that 
poseur  of  syntax,  and  to  paradox,  that  dandified  juggler  of 
ideas.  Habits  played  blind  man's  buff  with  convention  ; 
and  so  determined  was  the  fashion  of  the  hour  to  be  "  out 
of  fashion  "  that,  with  those  who  were  dans  le  mouvement 
heterodoxy  took  the  sting  out  of  its  own  tail  by  becoming  a 
form  of  orthodoxy.  So  remarkable  was  this  spread  of  in- 
tellectual vanity  that  it  was  quite  possible  to  have  at  one  and 
the  same  time  such  variations  as  Oscar  Wilde  and  Aubrey 
Beardsley  surprising  by  their  neo-paganism  and  its  glorifica- 
tion of  the  artificial ;  Max  Beerbohm  and  G.  S.  Street  sur- 
prising by  their  satires  of  the  former  and,  above  all,  by  their 
very  conservatism  in  an  age  of  revolt ;  and,  at  the  other 
extreme,  such  a  complete  and  versatile  revolutionary  surprise 
packet  of  vanity  as  Bernard  Shaw,  who  added  to  the  general 
astonishment  by  insisting  upon  the  Puritanical  basis  of  his 
own  theory  of  life.  Equally  surprising  and  unexpected 
to  all  but  the  most  patient  observers  of  intellectual  re- 
volutions, was  the  completion  of  the  somersault  of  ideas  at 
the  very  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century,  when  intellectual 
consciousness  landed  on  its  feet,  as  it  were,  becoming 
wildly  English  and  frankly  Christian  in  the  genius  of 
G.  K.  Chesterton. 

Whilst  the  essential  dandyism  of  the  decade  lasted  it 
needed  an  urban  background.  Town  was  its  natural  element, 
pastoral  dandyism  being  as  yet  unborn,  though  pastoral 
romance  was  as  old  as  the  hills.  The  very  idyll  of  love 
literally  assumed  a  new  complexion.  It  was  not  fashionable 
for  poets  to  sing  of  shepherd  who  told 

"  his  tale 
Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale.'- 

It  was  the  fashion  to  sing,  as  Arthur  Symons  did,  of 

"  The  chance  romances  of  the  streets, 
The  JuUet  of  a  night  "  ; 


THE  NEW  DANDYISM  113 

and  poets,  far  from  protesting  overmuch  of  eternal  fidelity, 
unblushingly  confessed  their  lack  of  amorous  concentration  ; 

"  I  too  have  sought  on  many  a  breast 
The  ecstasy  of  love's  unrest, 
I  too  have  had  my  dreams  and  met 
(Ah  me  I)  how  many  a  Juhet.'' 

Such  poems  ai'e  in  many  instances  artificial  to  the  extent 
that  they  are  obviously  the  result  of  deliberately  cultivated 
moods  ;  they  and  their  kind  are  the  green  carnations  of  song ; 
and  they  are  unnatural  only  to  the  extent  that  they  represent 
a  peculiarly  civilised,  as  distinct  from  a  peculiarly  barbarian, 
form  of  life.  These  differences  reveal  themselves  more 
clearly  in  Arthur  Symons'  defence  of  his  own  early  poems, 
which  a  reviewer  had  called  "unwholesome"  because,  he 
said,  they  had  "a  faint  smell  of  patchouli  about  them." 
The  name  of  that  scent  was  used  more  or  less  symbolically, 
and  the  poet  accepts  it  as  such  and  sums  up  an  eloquent 
defence  of  his  position  as  follows  : — 

"Patchouli!  Well,  why  not  Patchouli?  Is  there  any 
'  reason  in  nature  '  why  we  should  write  exclusively  about 
the  natural  blush,  if  the  delicately  acquired  blush  of  rouge 
has  any  attraction  for  us  ?  Both  exist ;  both,  I  think,  are 
charming  in  their  way  ;  and  the  latter  as  a  subject  has,  at 
all  events,  more  novelty.  If  you  prefer  your  '  new  mown 
hay  '  in  the  haj^field,  and  I,  it  may  be,  in  a  scent  bottle,  why 
may  not  my  individual  caprice  be  allowed  to  find  expression 
as  well  as  yours  ?  Probably  I  enjoy  the  hayfield  as  much 
as  you  do,  but  I  enjoy  quite  other  scents  and  sensations  just 
as  well  and  I  take  the  former  for  granted  and  write  my  poem, 
for  a  change,  about  the  latter.  There  is  no  necessary  differ- 
ence in  artistic  value  between  a  good  poem  about  a  flower  in 
the  hedge,  and  a  good  poem  about  the  scent  in  a  sachet.  I 
am  always  charmed  to  read  beautiful  poems  about  nature  in 
the  country.  Only,  personally,  I  prefer  town  to  country ; 
and  in  the  town  we  have  to  find  for  ourselves,  as  best  we  may, 
the  decor  which  is  the  town  equivalent  of  the  great  natural 
decor  of  fields  and  hills.     Here  it  is  that  artificiality  comes  in ; 


114  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

and  if  anyone  sees  no  beauty  in  the  effects  of  artificial  light 
in  all  the  variable,  most  human,  and  yet  most  factitious  town 
landscape,  I  can  only  pity  him,  and  go  on  my  own  way." 

The  above  passage  does  something  more  than  defend  with 
sound  logic  the  artificial  attitude  of  the  decadence  :  it  throws 
a  very  useful  light  upon  the  whole  of  that  phase  of  the  art 
and  life  of  the  period.  Arthur  Symons  in  his  own  personality 
substantiates  Barbey  D'Aurevilly's  theory  that  the  dandy 
is  the  product  of  boredom  ;  Symons  having  been  nurtured 
in  Nonconformity  represents  literally  a  Pagan  revolt  against 
Puritanism.  His  use  of  such  words  as  "  novelty, "  "  change  " 
and  "caprice  "  further  reveal  the  existence  of  a  tempera- 
ment which,  having  grown  restive  under  the  constraints  of 
custom  and  recognised  procedure,  seeks  reality  in  the  con- 
scious exploitation  of  mood  and  whim.  It  was  only  the 
very  young  and  the  very  limited  in  vision  who  imagined  that 
novelty,  caprice  and  change,  associated  with  sensation,  held 
in  themselves  any  satisfying  food  for  the  soul ;  and,  if  they 
did  imagine  such  a  thing,  disillusion  was  ever  waiting  for  the 
chance  to  offer  them  her  cold  companionship.  As  for  the 
whim  of  artificiality,  that  child  of  decadent  inquisitiveness, 
neither  in  life  nor  in  art  was  it  other  than  limited  and  exotic. 
Even  the  hints  of  the  existence  of  perversions  like  homo- 
sexuality were  more  or  less  exaggerated  :  they  would  be  more 
appropriate  to  the  London  of  to-day  than  to  the  London 
immediately  preceding  the  trial  of  Oscar  Wilde. 

Aubrey  Beardsley  was  the  supreme  example  of  the  revolt 
against  Nature,  but  it  is  probable  that  even  his  revolt  was 
more  artistic  than  actual.  In  his  art  he  realised  Oscar  Wilde's 
dictum  that  "  The  first  duty  in  life  is  to  be  as  artificial  as 
possible."  His  pictures  are  at  the  antipodes  of  naturalism, 
and  his  unfinished  romance,  Under  the  Hill,  is  a  mosaic  of 
artificiality.  Life  is  never  left  to  its  own  unaided  devices 
for  a  moment  in  this  strange  work,  which  seems  at  times, 
by  the  very  heaped-up  deliberation  of  its  artifice,  to  satirise 
all  the  weaknesses  of  the  decadence,  by  pressing  them  to 
their  logical  conclusion  in  the  negation  of  all  spontaneous 
desire  save  desire  for  the  gratification  of  perverse  sensations. 


THE  NEW  Dx^NDYISM  115 

It  creates  life  out  of  cosmetics  and  aberrations  ;  and  Nature 
never  appears  except  in  the  form  of  an  abnormality.  Could 
anything  more  artificial  be  imagined,  outside  of  a  picture 
by  Beardsley,  than  this  description  of  the  toilet  of  Venus  ? 
"  Before  a  toilet  that  shone  like  the  altar  of  Notre  Dame  des 
Victoires,  Venus  was  seated  in  a  little  dressing-gown  of  black 
and  heliotrope.  The  coiffeur  Cosme  was  caring  for  her 
scented  chevelure,  and  with  tiny  silver  tongs,  warm  from 
the  caresses  of  the  flame,  made  delicious  intelligent  curls 
that  fell  as  lightly  as  a  breath  about  her  forehead,  and  over 
her  eyebrows,  and  clustered  like  tendrils  about  her  neck. 
Her  three  favourite  girls,  Papplarde,  Blanchemains  and 
Loreyne,  waited  immediately  upon  her  with  perfume  and 
powder  in  delicate  flagons  and  frail  cassolettes,  and  held  in 
porcelain  jars  the  ravishing  paints  prepared  by  Chateline 
for  those  cheeks  and  lips  that  had  grown  a  little  pale  with 
anguish  of  exile.  Her  three  favourite  boys,  Claude,  Clair 
and  Sarrasine,  stood  amorousl}^  about  with  salver,  fan  and 
napkin.  Millarmant  held  a  slight  tray  of  slippers,  Minette 
some  tender  gloves.  La  Popeliniere,  mistress  of  the  robes, 
was  ready  with  a  frock  of  yellow  and  yellow.  La  Zambinella 
bore  the  jewels,  Florizel  some  flowers,  Amadour  a  box  of 
various  pins,  and  Vadius  a  box  of  sweets.  Her  doves,  ever 
in  attendance,  walked  about  the  room  that  was  panelled 
with  gallant  paintings  of  Jean  Baptiste  Dorat,  and  some 
dwarfs  and  doubtful  creatures  sat  here  and  there,  lolling 
out  their  tongues,  pinching  each  other,  and  behaving  oddly 
enough." 

In  spite  of  all  this  artificiality,  the  revolt  against  Nature 
was  not  organised,  but  it  was  very  real  and  very  self-conscious 
for  all  that.  An  artificial  and  half-hearted  attempt  was 
made  to  revive  the  literary  tavern,  and  literary  discussions 
were  actually  heard  once  again  in  so  unpromising  a  quarter 
as  Fleet  Street,  as  they  once  had  been  heard  in  the  days  of 
Samuel  Johnson.  The  Rhymers'  Club  foregathered  at  the 
Cheshire  Cheese,  and  members  read  their  poems  to  one 
another  and  discussed  the  great  business  of  poetry  and  life. 
This  revival  of  the  town  did  not  last  long  ;    a  new  charmer 


116  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  even  poets  fell  before  the 
seductions  of  suburban  life.  They  became  victims  of  our 
national  love  of  compromise,  and  the  exodus  began.  "  Who 
knows  but  that  Artifice  is  in  truth  at  our  gates  and  that  soon 
she  may  pass  through  our  streets  ?  "  asked  Max  Beerbohm, 
in  1894.  The  new  queen  was  more  than  at  our  gates  :  she 
had  entered  the  city  ;  but  she  was  never  really,  enthroned. 
On  the  eve  of  her  accession  fear  struck  the  hearts  of  lesjeunes 
ecrivains ;  fear,  or  disillusion,  or  the  birth-pangs  of  middle 
age,  and  Queen  Artifice  was  denied  by  her  whilom  com'tiers 
from  villa  retreats  without  the  city  walls.  The  only  artifice 
which  actually  survived  was  that  which,  like  the  romance  in 
Kipling's  poem,  was  already  "  printed  and  bound  in  little 
books. "  The  chance  romances  of  the  streets  were  abandoned 
for  the  reputedly  more  certain  realities  of  home  life. 
Bohemians  cut  their  locks,  shed  their  soft  collars  and  fell 
back  upon  Suburbia.  No  more  songs  about  Nora  of  the 
Pavement,  no  more  rhapsodies  about  the  glamour  of  the 
footlights,  no  more  rhetoric  about  passionate  and  scarlet 
lives  ;  even  dandyism  of  thought  and  word  disappeared  ; 
for,  once  you  live  in  a  suburb,  there  is  nothing  left  but  to 
become  ordinary. 

The  decadence  suffered  early  from  fatty  degeneration  of 
its  naughtiness  and  found  sanctuary  in  the  suburbs.  Even 
Max  Beerbohm,  during  his  ''first  year  at  Oxford,"  saw  it 
coming,  as  he  thought  of  "  the  lurid  verses  written  by 
young  men  who,  in  real  life,  know  no  haunt  more  lurid  than 
a  literary  public-house." 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE   INCOMPARABLE   MAX 


THE  New  Urbanity  had  no  finer  expression  than  that 
which  was  summed  up  and  set  forth  in  the  person- 
ahty  and  art  of  Max  Beerbohm.  It  was  fine  because 
it  was  at  once  normal  and  unique,  sane  but  inconsequent, 
sedate  without  being  serious,  and  mannered  mthout  empty 
severity  or  formahty.  Max  was  the  comic  spirit  of  the 
Nineties,  and  he  took  his  elegant  way  without  haste  or  fuss, 
dropping  appropriate  remarks  about  himself  apropos  of 
others  and  vice  versa  ;  throwing  upon  the  decadence  of  his 
day  the  critical  light  of  a  half-appreciative  humour.  With- 
out being  decadent,  this  extraordinarily  modern  personality 
managed  to  represent  the  decadence  laughing,  or  rather 
smiling,  at  itself. 

Max  Beerbohm  was  born  in  London,  in  August  1872,  and 
it  is  interesting  to  note  that  he  entered  the  world  three  days 
after  his  famous  contemporary,  Aubrey  Beardsley,  who  was 
born  at  Brighton  during  the  same  week.  He  was  educated 
at  Charterhouse,  and  Merton  College,  Oxford,  where  his 
critical  and  satirical  gifts  revealed  themselves  in  caricatures 
of  masters  and  dons  ;  in  a  letter  to  The  Carthusian,  over  the 
pseudonym,  "Diogenes,"  complaining  against  the  dullness 
of  the  school  journal,  and  in  a  satire  in  Latin  elegiacs,  called 
Beccarius,  twelve  copies  of  which  were  privately  printed,  at 
the  suggestion  of  his  form-master,  in  the  form  of  a  four-page 
pamphlet.  A  rough  yellow  paper  was  used  for  the  publica- 
tion, and  the  year  of  issue  was  1890.  The  colour  and  date 
may  be  noted  ;  and,  still  more  significant,  the  title  of  his 
first  notable  essay,  ''A  Defence  of  Cosmetics,"  ^^Titten  at 
Oxford,  and  published  in  the  first  number  of  The  Yellovc  Book 
in  1894. 
117 


118  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

That  year  and  the  two  following  saw  the  reputation  he  had 
made  at  Oxford  carried  to  London,  and  Max,  in  the  second 
year  of  manhood,  leapt  into  the  front  rank  of  the  literary 
renaissance.  During  these  years  he  contributed  to  The 
Yellow  Book,  in  addition  to  the  above-named  essay,  "  A 
Letter  to  the  Editor,"  in  July  1894,  and  "  A  Note  on  George 
the  Fourth, "  in  October  1894.  Later  he  contributed  "  Dandies 
and  Dandies,"  to  Vanity,  New  York,  February  1895 ; 
"Notes  on  Foppery,"  to  The  Unicorn,  September  1895; 
"Be  it  Cosiness,"  to  The  Pageant,  Christmas  1895;  "A 
Good  Prince,"  to  The  Savoy,  January  1896;  "  De  Natura 
Barbatulorum,"  to  The  Chap-Book,  February  1896  ;  and 
"  Poor  Romeo  !  "  to  The  Yellow  Book,  April  1896.  These 
essays  were  collected,  revised  and,  in  some  instances,  re- 
named, and  published  in  a  little  red  volume,  with  white 
paper  label,  under  the  title  of  The  Works  of  Max  Beerhohm, 
in  1896.  During  the  same  period  he  contributed  caricatures 
to  The  Sketch,  The  Pall  Mall  Budget,  Pick-me-up,  The  Yellow 
Book,  The  Octopus  and  The  Savoy.  Some  of  these  have  been 
re-issued  in  volume  form,  but  the  majority  are  buried  in  the 
files  of  those  publications. 

There  is  nothing  specially  remarkable  in  the  amount  of 
work  recorded  above,  but  its  distinctive  quality  for  a  young 
man  still  under  twenty-four  years  of  age  is  characteristic  of 
the  precocity  of  the  period.  More  remarkable  still,  however, 
is  the  air  of  ancient  wisdom  which  pervades  the  essays. 
Max  Beerbohm  gives  the  impression  of  having  been  born 
grown-up — that  is  to  say,  more  or  less  ripe  when  others  would 
be  more  or  less  raw  and  green.  One  can  well  imagine  such  a 
youth  a  few  years  earlier  filling,  in  a  more  elegant  way,  the 
part  of  Sir  W.  S.  Gilbert's  immortal  "Precocious  Baby," 
Avho  was  born,  it  will  be  remembered,  with 

"  A  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  a  glass  in  his  eye, 
A  hat  all  awry, 
An  octagon  tie. 
And  a  miniature-miniature  glass  in  his  eye," 

for  he  assures  us  that  at  school  he  read  Marius  the  Ejncurean 
in  bed,  and  found  the  book  as  fascinating  as  Midshipmcm 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  MAX  119 

Easy.  The  ripeness  of  maturity  having  estabhshed  itself 
so  early,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  Max  Beerbohni  announc- 
ing his  intention  of  settling  down  to  a  cosy  dotage  at  the 
great  age  of  twenty-five,  and,  as  a  step  towards  this  comfort- 
able end,  publishing  his  collected  Works,  with  a  Bibliography 
by  Mr  John  Lane  of  the  Bodley  Head.  "  Once  again  in  the 
delusion  that  Art,"  he  wrote,  in  1895,  "loving  the  recluse, 
would  make  his  life  happy,  I  wrote  a  little  for  a  yellow 
quarterly  and  had  that  succes  de  fiasco  which  is  always  given 
to  a  young  Avriter  of  talent.  But  the  stress  of  creation  soon 
overwhelmed  me.  Only  Art  with  a  capital  H  gives  any 
consolations  to  her  henchman.  And  I,  who  crave  no  knight- 
hood, shall  write  no  more.  I  shall  write  no  more.  Already 
I  feel  myself  to  be  a  trifle  outmoded.  I  belong  to  the 
Beardsley  period.  Younger  men,  with  months  of  activity 
before  them,  with  fresher  schemes  and  notions,  with  newer 
enthusiasm,  have  pressed  forward  since  then.  Cedo  juni- 
oribus.  Indeed,  I  stand  aside  with  no  regret.  For  to  be 
outmoded  is  to  be  a  classic,  if  one  has  written  well.  I  have 
acceded  to  the  hierarchy  of  good  scribes  and  rather  like  my 
niche." 

It  was  an  age  of  poses,  and  this  was  one  of  the  most  re- 
freshing :  all  the  other  young  men  were  frantically  striving 
to  cram  into  their  youth  the  multiple  experiences  of  a  genera- 
tion weary  of  experiencing  anything  older  than  the  moment 
before  last.  But  Max  in  his  undue  maturity  was  not  old  ; 
he  was  merely  trying  the  alleged  unruffled  calm  of  elderliness 
on  the  palate  of  waning  youth  (a  period  when  men  feel  older 
than  they  are,  or  will  be)  and,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
hot-house  ardency  of  the  hour,  he  declared  it  to  be  good. 
Actually,  Max  was  that  wise  thing — a  ripe  youth.  Even 
now  he  seems  to  be  immune  from  the  trespassing  years,  hav- 
ing, doubtless,  forestalled  them  in  the  Nineties.  The  elderly 
by  nature  do  not  grow  old.  So,  having  terminated  his  life 
as  a  writer  in  1896  by  the  publication  of  his  Works,  with  the 
whimsical  conclusion,  "  Diminuendo,"  in  which  he  confessed 
that  he  believed  himself  outmoded,  and  declared  his  inten- 
tion of  living  a  life  of  meditation  in  some  unfasliionable 


120  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETTES 

suburban  retreat,  he  began  \\Titing  again.  His  second  period 
produced  a  fantastic  talc,  The  Happy  Hypocrite,  and  a  com- 
panion volume  to  the  Works,  entitled  More.  This  book, 
published  in  1899,  is  a  selection  from  among  a  considerable 
number  of  essays  contributed  to  various  periodicals,  all  of 
which,  with  the  exception  of  To-Morrow,  are  in  the  normal 
current  of  publicity.  More  recently  he  has  issued  a  further 
volume  of  essays.  Yet  Again  (1909),  a  novel,  Zuleika  Dobson 
(1911),  a  volume  of  parodies  on  modern  prose  styles,  A 
Christmas  Garland  (1912),  several  collections  of  caricatures, 
and  a  one-act  comedy  of  his  has  been  produced  at  the  Palace 
Theatre. 

A  notable  event  in  his  literary  life  was  the  succession  to 
Bernard  Shaw  as  dramatic  critic  of  The  Saturday  Review,  in 
1898.  Just  twelve  months  before  Max  had  ^^Titten  his  o^^'Tl 
valedictory — "Be  it  Cosiness,"  reprinted  in  the  Works  as 
"Diminuendo,"  Bernard  Shaw  joined  the  staff  of  The 
Saturday  Review,  and  when  ill-health  forced  him  to  relinquish 
his  post  he  A\Tote  an  equally  famous  "  Valedictory,"  announc- 
ing Max  as  his  successor.  "  The  younger  generation  is 
knocking  at  the  door,"  ^^Tote  Shaw,  in  his  generous  announce- 
ment of  the  new-comer.  "  The  younger  generation  is  knock- 
ing at  the  door  ;  and  as  I  open  it  there  steps  spritely  in  the 
incomparable  Max."  Max  Beerbohm  was  not  exactly  the 
younger  generation  knocking  at  the  door  of  dramatic  criti- 
cism, Bernard  Shaw  was  that  younger  generation.  The 
incomparable  Max  had  no  new  axe  to  grind.  He  was  neither 
new  nor  old,  progressive  nor  reactionary.  He  brought  to 
the  theatre  nothing  save  his  own  personality,  and  advocat- 
ing no  other  cause,  and  upholding  neither  this  "  movement  " 
nor  that,  he  contented  himself  by  recording  his  own  dramatic 
likes  and  dislikes.  And  if  his  penetrating  and  creative  criti- 
cism did  not  always  see  eye  to  eye  with  the  upholders  of  what 
was  called  the  "higher  drama,"  it  had,  in  addition  to  its 
independence  and  insight,  the  lasting  charm  of  good  wTiting. 

There  are  those  even  among  the  appreciators  of  Max 
Beerbohm  who  seem  to  take  special  delight  in  laying  stress 
upon  what  they  call  his  cleverness  and  brilliance.     Such 


"Mk.   w.  B.  Vkats  presenting  Mr.  George  Moore  to  the 
(^)rEE\  OF  the  Fairies" 

By  Max  Beerbohvi 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  MAX  121 

obvious  characteristics  of  his  work  are  not  to  be  denied  ; 
but,  when  all  has  been  said  upon  the  point,  it  is  only  right  to 
admit  that  cleverness  and  brilliance,  common  enough  stock- 
in-trade  even  of  the  literary  huckster,  are  only  a  phase,  and 
a  minor  phase,  of  the  art  of  Max  Beerbohm.  First  and  fore- 
most, he  represents  a  point  of  view.  And,  secondly,  that 
point  of  view  is  in  no  sense  a  novelty  in  a  civilised  society. 
Every  age  has  had  its  representative  of  a  similar  attitude 
towards  life,  in  one  a  Horace,  in  another  a  Joseph  Addison 
and,  again,  a  Charles  Lamb.  In  our  age  it  is  Max  Beerbohm. 
He  is  the  spirit  of  urbanity  incarnate  ;  he  is  town.  He  is 
civilisation  hugging  itself  with  whimsical  appreciation  for  a 
conservative  end.  "  A  delicate  and  Tory  temperament  pre- 
cludes me  from  conversing  with  Radicals,"  he  says.  That 
does  not  preclude  him  from  laughing  at  institutions  and  what 
might  be  called  institutional  persons.  But  it  precludes  him 
from  shouting  and  arguing  loudly,  in  an  age  given  overmuch 
to  that  sort  of  thing.  He  talks  the  quiet  talk  of  culture, 
and  his  finely  balanced  essays  betray  conscious  appreciation 
of  the  immemorial  traditions  of  culture  on  every  page. 
When  he  reproves,  in  either  prose  or  pictures,  he  reproves 
with  a  smile.  His  laughter  is  ever  Meredith's  laughter  of 
the  mind  ;  that  laughter  which  the  novelist  considered  a 
corrective  of  civilised  foibles  because  it  is  based  in  a  love  of 
civilisation  ;  the  laugh  that,  in  Meredith's  own  words,  "  will 
be  of  the  order  of  the  smile,  finely  tempered,  showing  sun- 
light of  the  mind,  mental  richness  rather  than  noisy  enormity. 
Its  common  aspect  is  one  of  unsolicitous  observation,  as  if 
surveying  a  full  field  and  having  leisure  to  dart  on  its  chosen 
morsels,  without  any  fluttering  eagerness.  Men's  future 
upon  earth  does  not  attract  it ;  their  honesty  and  shapeliness 
in  the  present  does  ;  and  whenever  they  wax  out  of  propor- 
tion, overblown,  affected,  pretentious,  bombastical,  hypo- 
critical, pedantic,  fantastically  delicate  ;  whenever  it  sees 
them  self-deceived  or  hoodwinked,  given  to  run  riot  in 
idolatries,  drifting  into  vanities,  congi'egating  in  absurdities, 
planning  shortsightedly,  plotting  dementedly ;  whenever 
they  are  at  variance  with  their  professions,  and  violate  the 


122  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETTES 

iiiivvritten  but  perceptible  laws  binding  them  in  considera- 
tion one  to  anotiicr  ;  whenever  they  offend  sound  reason, 
fair  justiee ;  are  false  in  hiunility  or  mined  with  conceit, 
individually  or  in  the  bulk,  the  Spirit  overhead  will  look 
humanely  malign  and  east  an  oblique  light  on  them,  followed 
by  volleys  of  silvery  laughter."  That  benign  yet  critical 
spirit  is  the  comic  spirit,  and  it  fathered  the  urbane  essays 
and  caricatures  of  Max  Beerbohm.  But  it  did  not  impress 
itself  upon  the  genius  of  Max  so  as  to  overwhelm  it  with 
social  purpose.  It  left  a  fair  margin  for  the  play  of  person- 
ality, for  playfulness  in  itself,  and  even  for  that  essential 
egotism  whose  special  flavour  captivates  by  insinuation 
rather  than  by  advertisement. 

The  attitude  he  adopts  in  his  books  is,  of  course,  a  pose, 
but  he  himself  would  not  deny  the  imputation.  On  the 
contrary.  His  pose  is  as  natural  as  anything  civilised  can 
be.  Civilisation  is  the  master  art  of  the  human  race,  and 
Max  Beerbohm  insists  upon  his  civilised  attributes,  realising 
in  his  every  mood  and  sensation  that  the  long  years  of  human 
development  have  made  him  a  detail  of  that  master  art,  just 
as  a  column  is  a  detail  of  architecture,  or  rhythm  of  verse. 
He  is  not,  however,  an  expression  of  the  hardness  of  even 
civilised  life  ;  he  is  the  expression  of  its  delicacy  and  refine- 
ment, one  of  the  points,  as  it  were,  wherein  the  race  in  its 
artificial  aspects  becomes  self-conscious,  contemplative, 
artistic,  meet  for  Mayfair  or  St  James's.  He  is  a  sane  mani- 
festation of  dandyism.  There  is  evidence  of  this  in  every 
line  of  his  essays — from  the  careful  and  inimitable  excellence 
of  his  prose  to  his  delight,  often  satirical,  in  the  use  of  ornate 
and  exotic  words.  You  would  deduce  a  dandy  from  such 
essays,  but  not  a  D'Orsay,  although  Max  is  also  an  amateur 
in  portraiture.  D'Orsay  abandoned  himself  to  personal 
display  ;  he  was  more  a  fop  than  a  dandy,  and  his  gorgeous 
clothes  were  flamboyant  weeds  rather  than  the  nice  accentua- 
tions of  a  man  and  his  works.  Max  is  never  abandoned,  so 
you  could  never  deduce  a  fop  from  his  essays.  What  you 
could  deduce  would  be  a  person  more  dignified,  less  theatrical, 
but  none  the  less  proud  of  himself;    and  the  quiet  eccen- 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  MAX  123 

tricity  of  his  clothes  would  serve  as  a  suitable  backgroiuid 
for  the  sly  brightness  of  his  wit.  For  the  dandyism  of  Max 
is  intrinsic  ;  it  is  a  state  of  being  rather  than  an  assumption  ; 
it  is  psychological,  expressing  itself  in  wit  rather  than  clothes ; 
and  wit  is  the  dandyism  of  the  mind. 

It  does  not  matter  what  he  ^vrites  about :  his  subjects 
interest  because  he  is  interesting.  A  good  essayist  justifies 
any  subject,  and  Max  Beerbohm  as  an  essayist  is  next  in 
succession  to  Charles  Lamb.  His  essays,  and  these  are  his 
greatest  w^orks,  are  genial  invitations  to  discuss  Max,  and 
you  discuss  him  all  the  more  readily  and  with  fuller  relish 
because  they  are  not  too  explicit ;  indeed,  he  is  often  quite 
prim.  "  On  the  banner  that  I  wave  is  embroidered  a  device 
of  prunes  and  prisms,"  he  says.  The  author  of  The  Works  of 
Max  Beerbohm,  of  More,  and  of  Yet  Again,  does  not  tell  you 
all ;  he  pays  you  a  delicate  compliment  by  leaving  you 
something  to  tell  yourself ;  the  end  of  his  ellipsis,  as  in  all 
the  great  essayists,  is  yourself.  He  is  quite  frank  with  you, 
and  properly  genial ;  but  he  is  too  fastidious  to  rush  into 
friendship  with  his  readers.  They  must  deserve  friendship 
first.  He  does  not  gush.  In  his  earlier  work  he  recalled  the 
Wise  Youth  in  Richard  Feverel,  and  Whistler  of  the  Ten 
O'clock.  But  latterly  he  has  grown  more  confiding  and  less 
artificial.  His  whimseys  have  given  place  to  irony— an 
irony  with  the  flavour  of  a  fully  matured  wine.  But  he  has 
not,  as  yet,  achieved  great  distinction  in  letters  outside  the 
medium  in  which  he  has  proved  himself  a  master.  His  de- 
partures from  the  essay,  in  the  form  of  a  short  story  and  a 
novel,  are,  in  a  sense,  extensions  of  his  genius  as  an  essayist. 
Tfie  Hajrpy  Hypocrite  is  really  an  essay  masquerading  as  a 
story,  and  Zideika  Dobson,  a  ■s\Teath  of  essays  (including  one 
exquisite  gem  on  Oxford),  aphorisms  and  detached  reflec- 
tions, hung  about  a  refreshingly  extravagant  story.  The 
real  Max  Beerbohm  is,  I  fancy,  an  essayist  pure  and  simple, 
the  essay  being  the  inevitable  medium  for  the  expression  of 
his  urbane  and  civilised  genius.  There  are,  he  has  told  us,  a 
few  people  in  England  who  are  interested  in  repose  as  an  art. 
He  is,  undoubtedly,  one  of  them.     But  he  is  also  interested 


124  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

in  the  art  of  the  essay,  and  his  essays  are  exquisite  contribu- 
tions to  that  rare  art.  In  them  you  see  revealed  the  com- 
plete Max,  interpreting  deftly,  by  means  of  wit  and  humour, 
imagination  and  scholarship,  that  "  uninterrupted  view  of 
my  fellow-creatures,"  to  use  his  own  words,  which  he  admits 
preferable  to  books,  and  which,  doubtless,  he  prefers  better 
than  any  other  view  in  life. 

Even  his  caricatures  are  essays,  and  not  only  in  the 
pictorial  sense,  for  many  of  them  are  incomplete  in  them- 
selves ;  they  depend  for  their  fulness  of  satire  upon  the 
carefully  worded  descriptions  added  by  the  artist.  His 
earlier  style  of  drawing  was  far  simpler  than  the  elaborate 
pictures  which  are  the  delight  of  so  many  who  love  fun  with 
a  sting  in  it,  at  the  now  familiar  Leicester  Gallery  exhibitions. 
His  Caricatures  of  Twenty-five  Gentleinen  (1896)  is  a  volume 
of  drawings  in  simple  black  and  white,  each  in  the  nature  of 
a  grotesque  comment  upon  some  contemporary  personality. 
There  is  little  of  the  deeper  satire  which  Max  afterwards 
developed.  It  was  a  decade  of  attitudinising,  and  carica- 
tures in  tliis  early  volume  are  portraits  of  modern  attitudes 
seen  through  the  lens  of  a  temperament  which  distorts  with- 
out malice  for  the  sake  of  healthy  and  critical  laughter. 
But,  with  the  exception  of  the  caricatiu-e  of  Aubrey  Beardsley , 
which  combines  caricature  of  that  artist's  personal  appear- 
ance and  his  art,  plus  a  clever  comment  on  his  exotic  and 
artificial  point  of  view  in  the  introduction  of  a  toy  French 
poodle,  there  is  very  little  below  the  surface  of  these  draw- 
ings ;  they  lack  depth.  His  later  work  in  caricature  is 
broader  as  well  as  deeper,  and  his  keen  sense  of  satirical  fun 
does  not  hesitate  to  go  hand-in-hand  with  a  sharper  form 
of  criticism  when  face  to  face  with  pomposity  or  the  self- 
sufficiency  of  our  mandarins.  The  fulness  of  Max  Beer- 
bohm's  genius  as  a  caricaturist  is  to  be  seen  in  the  volume  of 
coloured  drawings  called  The  Poet's  Corner  (1904).  Here  we 
have  him  arousing  the  laughter  of  amusement  in  such  draw- 
ings as  "Omar  Khayyam,"  "Dante  in  Oxford";  the 
laughter  which  is  criticism  in  "  Robert  Browning  taking  Tea 
with  the  BrowTiing  Society,"  and   "  Mr  Rudyard  Kipling 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  MAX  125 

takes  a  bloomin'  Day  aht,  on  the  blasted  'Eath,  along  with 
Britannia,  'is  Gurl  "  ;  and  the  laughter  which  ceases  to  be 
laughter  in  "Mr  W.  B.  Yeats  presenting  Mr  George  Moore 
to  the  Queen  of  the  Fairies,"  and  the  unforgettable  "  Mr 
Tennyson  reading  In  Memoriam  to  his  Sovereign  " — surely 
among  the  great  caricatures  of  all  time.  Max  rarely  knots 
the  lash  of  his  satire,  but  his  caricatures  of  certain  aspects  of 
Court  life  prove  him  to  be  capable  of  inflicting  criticisms 
which  might  well  make  their  subjects  wince.  In  the  main, 
however,  his  caricatures  suggest  an  amused  impartiality. 
Most  of  us  are  in  the  habit  of  making  to  ourselves  sarcastic 
or  whimsical  remarks  about  the  people  we  meet,  see  or  hear 
about.  Max  Beerbohm  has  put  such  usually  silent  comment 
into  pictures  ;  and  these  pictures  constitute  in  themselves  a 
revival  of  caricature  in  a  country  that  had  practically  lost 
the  art  of  personal  satire  in  pictures — and  the  taste  for  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


SHOCKING    AS   A    FINE    ART 


"  Thrice  I  have  patted  my  God  on  the  head  that  men  might  call  me  brave." — 
Tomlinsoii,  by  RuDYARD  KiPLlNG. 

CLOSELY  related  to  the  new  dandyism  and  the  search 
lor  reality  by  means  of  mood  and  sensation  in  their 
more  sophisticated  forms  came  the  gentle  art  of 
astonishing  the  middle  class.  The  one  was  in  the  nature 
of  a  by-product  of  the  other.  Young  bloods  of  the  period 
delighted  to  epatcr  le  bourgeois,  as  the  phrase  went,  and 
^vith  experience  a  new  kind  of  art  came  into  vogue :  the  art 
of  shocking.  In  a  sense  the  necessity  was  thrust  upon  the 
younger  generation  by  the  unimaginative  opposition  their 
demand  for  more  life  encountered  at  the  hands  of  the  auto- 
cracy of  elderly  respectability.  It  was  really  a  contest  be- 
tween the  stupidity  of  vitality  and  the  vitality  of  stupidity. 
For  if  those  in  authority  had  occasional  doubts  as  to  their 
own  material  importance  they  had  none  about  their  virtue 
and  righteousness.  No  one,  indeed,  had  ever  contested  their 
right  to  such  views,  and  these  views  were  supported  by  the 
full  weight  of  traditional  opinion.  It  was  hardly  sm-prising 
that  they  should  look  with  suspicion  upon  the  restiveness 
of  the  younger  generation,  because  that  unrest  was  not  the 
conventional  sowing  of  wild  oats  :  a  custom  conventionally 
recognised  from  earliest  times  as  the  natural  safety  valve  of 
turbulent  youth.  It  was  a  far  more  subtle  thing.  To  let  off 
steam  and  settle  down  into  the  steady  and  respectable  nm 
of  life  is  one  thing,  and  comprehensible  to  elderly  folk  who 
have  been  tlirough  the  process,  but  to  let  off  steam  and  refuse 
to  settle  down  seemed  serious  folly,  especially  when  align- 
ments were  advanced  in  defence  of  what,  in  the  elderly  point 
of  view,  was  nothing  less  than  outrageous  conduct.     The 

126 


SHOCKING  AS  A  FINE  ART  127 

bewildered  elders  of  the  Nineties  were  faced  with  that 
dilemma. 

At  the  same  time,  the  gospel  of  epater  le  bourgeois  was  in 
the  main  less  an  actuality  than  an  idea  seeking  expression  in 
life  and  using  Art  as  its  advocate.  True  it  had  its  practical 
exponents,  but  these  were  generally  confined  to  the  more 
literary  and  artistic  circles,  and  for  the  general  public  they 
became  a  part  of  the  mythology  of  the  Nineties  even  during 
the  decade.  Rumours  of  strange  wickedness  were  heard 
in  many  directions.  Names  were  mentioned ;  and  certain 
artists  and  minor  poets  gained  repute  by  their  alleged 
association  with  vice.  It  was  fashionable  in  "  artistic  " 
circles  to  drink  absinthe  and  to  discuss  its  "  cloudy  green  " 
suggestiveness ;  and  other  hitherto  exotic  drugs  were  also 
called  into  the  service  of  these  dilettanti  of  sin.  Certain 
drugs  seemed  to  gather  about  them  an  atmosphere  of 
romance  during  these  years,  and  all  sorts  of  stimulants  and 
soporifics,  from  incense  and  perfumes  to  opium,  hashish,  and 
various  forms  of  alcohol,  were  used  as  means  to  extend 
sensation  beyond  the  range  of  ordinary  consciousness,  along 
with  numerous  well-known  and  half-known  physical  aids  to 
passionate  experience.  The  age  was  extraordinarily  sensi- 
tive, for  instance,  to  the  suggestiveness  of  sex.  The  subject 
was  discussed  with  a  new  interest  and  a  new  frankness  in 
essays  and  novels  and  plays ;  but  for  one  person  interested 
in  the  medico-legal  sides  of  the  questions  raised,  a  dozen 
must  have  been  drawn  to  the  subject  by  a  craving  for  for- 
bidden fruit.  Thus  sex-inquisitiveness  awoke  slumbering 
aberrations  in  some  and  suggested  them  to  others,  with  the 
result  that  definite  perverse  practices  became  associated  with 
the  "  advanced  "  movement. 

The  appearance  in  literature  and  art  of  this  new  outlook 
upon  life  bore  with  it  all  the  attractiveness  of  novelty  and 
daring,  and  the  irritation  such  things  arouse  among  a  people 
who  have  lived  for  many  years  under  the  impression  that 
morals,  and  even  ideas,  were  more  or  less  fixed.  But  the 
very  spirit  of  the  time  contested  such  complaisance.  An 
imp  of  disquiet  was  abroad,  scattering  notes  of  interrogation 


128  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

like  confetti  of  fire  among  cherished  principles  and  customs. 
The  young  men  enjoyed  the  fun  as  they  rushed  about 
smashing  up  the  intellectual  and  moral  furniture  of  their 
parents.  A  generation  nourished  by  the  high  normalities 
of  Tennyson  and  Browning,  which  had  thought  INIatthew 
Arnold  (the  critic)  rather  daring,  and  which  had  been  nearly 
scared  out  of  its  Swinburne  and  its  Rossetti  by  Robert 
Buchanan's  attack  on  "  The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry,"  had 
every  reason  to  be  horrified  by  the  appearance  of  Ibsen  and 
Nietzsche.  Many  shook  their  heads  ominously  and  took 
refuge  in  Locksley  Hall : 

"  Authors — essayist,  atheist,  novelist,  reaUst,  rhymester,  play  your 
part. 
Paint  the  mortal  shame  of  nature  with  the  living  hues  of  Art. 

Rip  your  brothers'  vices  open,  strip  your  own  foul  passions  bare  ; 
Down  with  Reticence,  down  with  Reverence — forward — naked — 
let  them  stare. '- 

Others  took  the  change  in  better  humour,  and  either  joined 
the  dance  or  became  interested  spectators. 

Influences  behind  the  art  of  shocking  were  not  entirely 
French,  though  the  French  decadents  played  their  part. 
Throughout  the  whole  of  the  period  English  publishers  were 
issuing  excellent  translations  of  modern  masterpieces  from 
many  European  idea-centres,  and  in  this  way  such  writers  as 
Tolstoy,  Ibsen,  Zola,  Nietzsche,  D'Annunzio  and  Turgenev 
became  familiar  aids  to  advanced  thought  in  this  country. 
Hitherto  the  language  barrier  had  left  these  writers  the 
property  of  the  cultured  classes,  as  was  the  case  with  the 
French  decadents,  the  chief  of  whom  have  not  even  now  been 
given  adequate  representation  in  English.  The  introduc- 
tion of  such  writers  was  like  the  opening  up  of  a  new  country 
to  be  immediately  settled  by  ardent  colonists.  Their  ideas 
were  eagerly  absorbed  and,  what  is  more  interesting,  used  in 
a  vigorous  criticism  of  life.  But  there  is  little  doubt  that 
the  first  foreign  ethical  influence  of  the  period  was  Henrik 
Ibsen,  whose  method  of  criticising  conventional  morals  by 
means  of  drama  had  a  profound  effect  upon  thinking  people 


SHOCKING  AS  A  FINE  ART  129 

and  dramatists.  Nietzsche  was  known  only  to  the  few  who 
read  German  at  the  beginning  of  the  decade,  but  before  the 
death  of  the  old  century  the  first  attempt  at  a  complete 
edition  of  the  works  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche  was  made  by 
Henry  &  Co.  The  enterprise,  however,  aroused  so  little 
interest  that  it  was  abandoned  after  the  production  of  four 
volumes.  It  was  not  until  1896  that  any  general  interest 
in  Nietzsche's  ideas  began  in  this  country.  In  that  year 
Havelock  Ellis  contributed  a  study  of  the  German  phil- 
osopher to  The  Savoy,  and  there  were  several  other  notices 
and  criticisms  in  the  reviews.  The  earliest  reference  to 
Nietzsche  in  the  literature  of  the  period  is  to  be  found  in 
George  Egerton's  Keynotes  (1892),  but  there  are  several 
pages  devoted  to  his  ideas  in  the  Sentences  and  Paragraphs 
of  John  Davidson  (1893),  who  seems  to  have  been  the  only 
writer  of  the  time  to  have  come  directly  under  the  spell  of 
the  Nietzschean  philosophy.  The  earliest  British  journal 
avowedly  upholding  an  "  egoistic  philosophy  "  was  started 
in  1898,  under  the  title  of  The  Eagle  and  the  Serpent.  It 
bore  beneath  its  title  these  words  from  Zarathustra  :  "  The 
proudest  animal  under  the  sun  and  the  wisest  animal  under 
the  sun  have  set  out  to  reconnoitre  " ;  and  for  further 
explanation  the  following  : — 

''Dedicated  to  the  Philosophy  of  Life  Enunciated  by 
Nietzsche,  Stirner,  Thoreau  and  Goethe,  The  Eagle 
AND  THE  Serpent  labours  for  the  Recognition  of 
New  Ideals  in  Politics  and  Sociology,  in  Ethics  and 
Philosophy,  in  Literature  and  Art. 


A  Race  of  Altruists  is  necessarily  a  Race  of 

Slaves. 
A  Race   of   Freemen   is   necessarily  a   Race   of 

Egoists. 
The  Great  are  only  great  because  we  are  on  our 

KNEES.     Let  us  rise  !  " 

I 


130  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETTES 

This  curious  and  entertaining  little  paper  was  published 
at  first  bi-monthly,  and  then  occasionally  and  fitfully,  until 
the  last  number  appeared  in  1902. 

One  foreign  influence  making  for  frankness  of  expression 
was  that  of  Emile  Zola,  whose  books  were  issued  in  a  well- 
translated,  although  somewhat  expurgated,  edition,  at  a 
popular  price.  Thousands  of  these  were  sold  and  read,  thus 
preparing  the  way  for  the  books  of  our  native  reahsts  like 
George  Moore,  whose  Esther  Waters  gave  one  of  the  most 
violent  shocks  of  the  period  ;  Arthur  Morrison,  with  his 
Tales  of  Mean  Streets  and  A  Child  of  the  J  ago,  and  Somerset 
Maugham's  Liza  of  Lambeth. 

Under  such  influences  the  art  of  shocking  rattled  along 
merrily  enough,  and  claimed  many  devotees.  These  may 
be  divided  rouglily  into  two  classes :  the  Individual  and  the 
Social.  In  the  former  there  were  the  typical  men  of  the 
literary  movement  of  the  Nineties  and  their  followers, 
astonishing  either  from  innate  addiction  to  caprice,  irre- 
pressibility  of  whim,  love  of  experiment  or,  as  was  often 
the  case  with  the  rank  and  file,  mere  cussedness.  Certain 
demonstrations  in  the  art  of  shocking  recall  the  story  of  the 
man  who,  seeing  the  father  of  decadent  poetry,  remarked  to 
a  friend  :  "  There  goes  Baudelaire.  I  wager  he  is  going  to 
sleep  under  the  bed  to-night  instead  of  in  it,  just  to  astonish 
it. "  Among  the  art  products  of  the  more  important  members 
of  this  class  stand  the  paradoxes  of  Oscar  Wilde,  the  pictures 
of  Aubrey  Beardsley,  the  early  poems  of  Arthur  Symons  and 
the  satires  of  Max  Beerbohm.  But  many  of  the  ^vriters  who 
might  have  astonished  the  middle  classes  by  administering 
artistic  shocks  put  other  qualities  into  their  art  and  filled 
their  lives  with  astonishing  incidents.  Nothing  is  more  re- 
markable in  looking  back  at  the  Nineties  than  to  note  how 
Death  has  gathered  to  himself  so  many  of  the  period's 
most  characteristic  and  most  interesting  figures.  All  of 
these  men  "  lived  their  own  lives,"  and  when  whim  or  Fate 
led  them  along  perilous  paths  they  suffered  the  consequences. 
Most  of  them  died  young,  several  were  scarcely  more  than 
vouths ;     some  died   of  diseases  which    might   have   been 


SHOCKING  AS  A  FINE  ART  131 

checked  or  prevented  in  more  careful  lives  ;  some  were  con- 
demned to  death  at  an  early  age  by  miserable  maladies,  and 
some  were  so  burdened  by  the  malady  of  the  soul's  unrest 
that  they  voluntarily  crossed  the  borderland  of  life.  It 
would  seem  as  if  these  restless  and  tragic  figures  thirsted 
so  much  for  life,  and  for  the  life  of  the  hour,  that  they  put 
the  cup  to  their  lips  and  drained  it  in  one  deep  draught : 
perhaps  all  that  was  mortal  of  them  felt  so  essential  to  the 
Nineties  that  life  beyond  the  decade  might  have  been  unbear- 
able. Oscar  Wilde  died  in  1900  at  the  age  of  forty-four  ; 
Aubrey  Beardsley  died  in  1898,  aged  twenty-six  ;  Ernest 
Dowson,  in  1900,  aged  thirty-three ;  Charles  Conder,  in 
1909,  aged  forty-one ;  Lionel  Johnson,  in  1902,  aged  thirty- 
five  ;  Hubert  Crackanthorpe,  in  1896,  aged  thirty-one ; 
Henry  Harland,  in  1905,  aged  forty-four ;  Francis  Thomp- 
son, in  1907,  aged  forty-eight ;  and  John  Davidson,  in  1909, 
aged  fifty-two. 

The  second  section  of  those  who  astonished  the  middle 
classes  was  composed  of  revolutionists  and  reformers  who 
shocked  by  expressing  the  newly  awakened  social  conscious- 
ness which  demanded  change  in  the  affairs  of  the  State — 
wider  margins  of  personal  freedom  and  better  opportunities 
of  life  and  comfort  for  all.  First  among  these  came  Bernard 
Shaw,  who  introduced  a  new  subjective  daring  into  dialectics 
and  social  controversy,  avowedly  designed  to  shock,  prod 
and  irritate  the  social  consciousness  of  the  bourgeoisie  into 
practical  moral  and  economic  zeal.  Grant  Allen  wrote  The 
Woman  Who  Did,  also  in  the  same  spirit,  to  draw  attention 
to  the  difficulties  of  our  marriage  customs.  The  direct  in- 
fluence behind  this  group,  although  he  did  not  supply  it 
with  all  its  ideas,  was  Ibsen.  The  Norwegian  dramatist- 
philosopher  suggested  the  attitude  of  the  moral  revolt.  It 
was  he,  and  not  Nietzsche,  who  first  taught  the  Englishman 
and  Englishwoman  to  "  transvalue  their  values,"  to  examine 
with  a  critical  and  restless  eye  the  moral  scaffolding  of 
their  civilisation,  and  to  suggest  to  them  where  they  would 
find  weaknesses.  And  the  result  was  that  the  middle 
classes  were  more  shocked  by   this  attack  than   by   any 


132  THE  ETGTTTP:EN  NINETIES 

other   astonishing   thing    of    the   period — save   the   fall   of 
Oscar  Wilde. 

Different  in  aim  and  method  as  these  two  classes  of  artists 
in  astonishment  may  have  been,  they  were  each  the  outcome 
of  the  same  demand  for  more  freedom,  more  experience, 
more  sensation,  more  life.  What  was  happening  in  England 
was  but  the  echo  of  what  had  been  happening  in  Western 
Europe  for  a  couple  of  decades.  The  idea  of  self-realisation, 
as  old  as  Emerson,  and  older,  was  at  the  root  of  the  modern 
attitude.  The  younger  generation  became  acutely  conscious 
of  parental  control.  Turgenev  had  interpreted  the  attitude 
in  its  broader  aspects  in  Fathers  and  Children,  which  was 
published  in  Russia  as  long  ago  as  1862.  But  the  nihilism 
of  Turgenev 's  great  creation,  Bazarov,  was  not  at  the  back 
of  the  English  revolt,  except  in  a  common  desire  of  freedom. 
Nor  were  the  men  of  the  Nineties  wholly  absorbed  in  material 
experiences.  Every  physical  excess  of  the  time  went  hand 
in  hand  with  spiritual  desire.  The  soul  seemed  to  be  trying 
the  way  of  the  flesh  with  calamitous  desperation.  Long 
years  of  Puritanism  and  rationalism  had  proved  the  folly  of 
salvation  by  morality  and  salvation  by  reason,  so  in  a  fit 
of  despair  the  unsatisfied  spirit  of  the  age  sought  respite  in 
salvation  by  sin.  The  recognition  of  sin  was  the  beginning 
of  the  revolt  against  rationalism  and  the  beginning  of  the 
revival  of  mysticism.  The  latter  revealed  itself  in  the  Theo- 
sophical  movement,  in  the  sudden  popularity  of  Maurice 
Maeterlinck,  and  in  numerous  conversions  to  Rome,  the  first 
and  last  home  of  Christian  mysticism. 

The  decadence  was  a  form  of  soul-sickness,  and  the  only 
cure  for  the  disease  was  mysticism.  But  there  was  also 
another  form  of  the  soul's  unrest  which  sprang  more  out  of 
excessive  vitality  straining  at  the  leash  of  custom.  It  was 
the  unrest  of  an  age  which  had  grown  too  big  for  its  boots. 
New  conceptions  of  life  and  morality  and  mankind  were  de- 
manded. Generations  had  been  brought  up  in  the  faith  that 
there  were  no  ideas  higher  than  man  and  God.  Many  were 
reasserting  the  democratic  faith  that  the  voice  of  the  people 
was  the  voice  of  God.     But  Max  Stirner  and  Heiu-ik  Ibsen 


SHOCKING  AS  A  FINE   ART  133 

were  gradually  insinuating  the  idea  that  the  highest  of  all 
things  was  not  mankind  but  the  self,  the  individual  ego,  and 
thus  preparing  the  way  for  Nietzsche,  who  foretold  the  super- 
session of  man  :  "  Man  is  a  bridge  connecting  animal  and 
superman — a  bridge  thrown  across  a  precipice." 

But  the  Nietzschean  idea,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  did  not 
reach  this  country  until  the  later  Nineties.  Ibsen  was  the 
social  stimulus  to  revolt.  His  plays  were  being  read  and 
acted,  and  the  idea  of  a  self-centred  personality  was  generally 
accepted  by  the  "intellectuals."  "  So  to  conduct  one's  life 
as  to  realise  oneself — tliis  seems  to  me  the  highest  attainment 
possible  to  a  human  being,"  Ibsen  had  written  to  Bjomson  ; 
and  again  in  a  letter  to  George  Brandes  he  had  said  :  "  The 
great  tiling  is  not  to  allow  oneself  to  be  frightened  by  the 
venerableness  of  an  institution.  The  state  has  its  roots  in 
Time  :  it  will  have  its  culmination  in  Time.  Greater  things 
than  it  will  fall ;  all  religion  will  fall.  Neither  the  conceptions 
of  morality  nor  those  of  art  are  eternal.  To  how  much  are 
we  really  obliged  to  pin  our  faith  ?  Who  will  vouch  for  it 
that  two  and  two  do  not  make  five  up  in  Jupiter  ?  "  Those 
words  were  written  as  far  back  as  1871,  but  it  took  twenty 
years  for  their  sense  as  expressed  in  the  plays  of  Ibsen  to 
be  fully  appreciated.  By  the  middle  of  the  Nineties  the 
attitude  was  so  much  to  the  taste  that  many  were  quite 
ready  to  say,  and  in  a  way  prove,  that  it  was  not  necessary 
to  go  as  far  as  Jupiter  to  find  two  and  two  making  five. 

In  the  main,  however,  the  majority  were  content  to  prove 
that  two  and  two  made  four  ;  but  they  insisted  upon  proving 
it  for  themselves  ;  that  the  proof  was  already  established 
and  long  since  taken  for  granted  was  quite  sufficient  to 
arouse  the  gravest  suspicions.  "  Whenever  people  agree 
with  me,  I  always  feel  I  must  be  WTong,"  said  Cecil  Graham, 
in  Lady  Windermere^s  Fan,  voicing  a  characteristic  whim. 
This  superior  attitude  was,  of  course,  far  from  the  general 
attitude  of  the  masses.  They  probably  knew  little  of  those 
adventures  among  ideas  and  sensations  wliich  occupied  more 
leisured  and  more  cultured  people.  The  art  of  shocking  the 
middle  classes  existed  mainly  among  members  of  that  class. 


134  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

It  was  an  internal  revolt.  "  Nothing,"  said  Arthur  Symons, 
"  not  even  conventional  virtue,  is  so  provincial  as  conven- 
tional vice  ;  and  the  desire  to  '  bewilder  the  middle  classes' 
is  itself  middle  class  ":  which  is  perfectly  true,  but  the  tend- 
ency is  not  to  be  belittled  for  all  that.  It  showed  that  the 
bourgeoisie  was  capable  of  producing  critics  of  itself,  however 
distasteful  these  proved  to  be.  The  earliest  critics  of  the  middle 
classes  had  always  arisen  within  the  pale  even  when  they 
had  been  Socialists,  as  in  the  instances  of  Ferdinand  Lassalle, 
Karl  Marx  and,  in  oiu*  own  time,  William  Morris,  H.  M. 
Hyndman  and  Bernard  Shaw.  The  conversion  to  Socialism 
of  that  genius  of  bewilderment,  Oscar  Wilde,  must  not  be 
taken  too  seriously  from  the  Socialistic  point  of  view,  as  to  a 
large  extent,  the  famous  essay  on  The  Soul  of  Man  under 
Socialism  was  little  more  than  an  elaborately  shocking  ad- 
mission ;  for  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  was  a  much 
more  daring  thing  to  announce  oneself  a  Socialist  then  than 
now — it  was  almost  as  daring  for  a  middle- class  girl  to  go  out 
unchaperoned,  and  shocked  almost  as  much. 

Literature  was  drawn  into  the  firing  line  of  the  times. 
Novels  and  plays  not  only  became  more  outspoken,  but 
sentences  became  more  epigrammatic  and  thoughts  more 
paradoxical.  No  one  could  say  how  the  most  innocent  of 
sentences  might  explode  in  its  last  word,  any  more  than  one 
could  prophesy  what  somersault  one's  favourite  belief  might 
take  in  its  latest  incarnation.  Surprises  lurked  in  the  most 
surprising  literary  places  as  though  to  reflect  and  keep  time 
with  the  reshuffling  of  habits  and  conventions.  And  just  as 
modern  literature  has  gained  in  brightness  by  the  experi- 
ence, so  the  adventure  has  familiarised  us  with  the  need  of 
variety  in  personality  and  of  wider  margins  of  freedom  for 
its  expression. 


CHAPTER  IX 

PURPLE    PATCHES    AND    FINE    PHRASES 

'*  I  am  going  to  sit  up  all  night  with  Reggie,  saying  mad  scarlet  things,  such 
as  Walter  Pater  loves,  and  waking  the  night  with  silver  silences.  .  .  .  Come, 
Reggie,  let  us  go  to  the  smoking-room,  since  we  are  left  alone.  I  will  be  brilliant 
for  you  as  I  have  never  been  brilliant  for  my  publishers.  I  will  talk  to  you  as 
no  character  in  my  plays  has  ever  talked.  Come  !  The  young  Endymion  stirs 
in  his  dreams,  and  the  pale-souled  Selene  watches  him  from  her  pearly  car. 

"  The  shadows  on  the  lawns  are  violet,  and  the  stars  wash  the  spaces  of  the 
sky  with  primrose  and  with  crimson.  The  night  is  old  yet.  Let  me  be  brilliant, 
dear  boy,  or  I  feel  that  I  shall  weep  for  sheer  wittiness,  and  die,  as  so  many 
have  died,  with  all  my  epigrams  still  in  nie." — Esme  Amarinth  in  The  Green 
Carnation. 

JUST  as  the  personal  revolt  of  the  decadence  ran  to 
dandyism,  so  its  literature  reached  the  same  goal. 
There  were  endless  discussions  about  "  style,"  and  many 
were  of  the  opinion  that  the  ultimate  form  of  a  thought, 
its  manner  of  word  and  sjnitax,  was  the  thing  in  itself. 
Words  for  words'  sake  was  a  kind  of  gospel,  and,  following 
the  habit  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  poets  and  prose-poets 
would  devote  long  hours  to  word-hunting.  They  would 
search  through  dictionaries  and  ancient  tomes  with  the  hot 
enthusiasm  of  the  hunter,  tracking  down  the  "  unique  word," 
and  hoping  to  capture  it  alive  for  exhibition  in  the  gardens 
of  modem  literatm-e.  Authors  with  a  personal  style  were 
cultivated  and  upheld.  The  "  Purple  Patches  "  in  Ruskin, 
Pater,  and  in  Edward  Fitzgerald's  Rubdiydt  of  Omar  Khay- 
yam, were  relished  with  voluble  delight.  Keats  came  in  for 
a  new  admiration,  and  Rossetti 's  poems  satisfied  the  call  of 
the  hour  by  the  suggestive  ardency  of  their  "  vagueness  and 
utterness, ' '  to  use  words  applied  by  George  Moore  to  the  poems 
of  Verlaine.  The  strong  and  deep  wit  of  George  Meredith, 
with  its  subtle  surprises,  aroused  even  greater  delight,  and 
the  meticulous  prose  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  with  its 

135 


136  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

almost  feminine  echoes  of  Meredith,  enraptured  those  who 
were  just  inheriting  the  newer  culture.  All  this  concern  for 
language  as  language,  for  the  set  and  balance  of  words,  was 
not,  however,  entirely  of  native  origin.  It  was,  as  in  the 
case  of  so  much  that  was  new  and  strange,  partially  derived 
from  the  French  decadent  movement  which  was  influencing 
the  whole  of  Europe. 

Many  years  ago  Theophile  Gautier  described  the  decadent 
style  as  "  ingenious,  complex,  learned,  full  of  shades  of  mean- 
ing and  investigation,  always  extending  the  boundaries  of 
language,  borrowmg  from  all  the  technical  vocabularies, 
taking  colours  from  all  palettes,  notes  from  all  keyboards, 
forcing  literary  expression  of  that  which  is  most  ineffable, 
and  in  form  the  vaguest  and  most  fleeting  outlines  ;  listen- 
ing, that  it  may  translate  them,  to  the  subtle  confidences  of 
the  neuropath,  to  the  avowals  of  ageing  and  depraved  passion, 
and  to  the  singular  hallucinations  of  fixity  of  idea  verging  to 
madness.  This  decadent  style  is  the  last  effort  of  language 
to  express  everything  to  the  last  extremity."  Further,  he 
compares  this  style  with  that  of  the  later  Roman  empire, 
when  language  became  "  mottled  with  the  greemiess  of  de- 
composition," in  a  word,  gamy  (faisandee).  But  in  England 
literary  style  developed  hardly  more  than  a  faint  flavour  of 
that  ga7ny  expression  associated  with  the  work  of  Baudelaire 
and  Huysmans,  and  it  approximated  more  nearly  to  its 
French  influences  in,  as  might  be  expected,  Oscar  Wilde  and 
Aubrey  Beardsley. 

One  recalls  many  a  wonderful  passage  in  Dorian  Gray 
wherein  Oscar  Wilde  tm-ned  the  results  of  his  word-hunting 
into  prose  passages  entirely  new  to  English  literatm-e  : 

"He  would  often  spend  a  whole  day  settling  and  re-settling 
in  their  cases  the  various  stones  that  he  had  collected,  such 
as  the  olive-green  chrysoberyl  that  turns  red  by  lamplight, 
the  cymophane  with  its  wire-like  line  of  silver,  the  pistachio- 
coloured  peridot,  rose-pink  and  wine-yellow  topazes,  car- 
buncles of  fiery  scarlet  with  tremulous  four-rayed  stars, 
flame-red  cinnamon  stones,  orange  and  violet  spinels,  and 


PURPLE  PATCHES  AND  FINE  PHRASES   137 

amethysts  with  their  alternate  layers  of  ruby  and  sapphire. 
He  loved  the  red-gold  of  the  sunstone,  and  the  moonstone's 
pearly  whiteness,  and  the  broken  rainbow  of  the  milky  opal. 
He  procured  from  Amsterdam  three  emeralds  of  extraordinary 
size  and  richness  of  colour,  and  had  a  turquoise  de  la  vieille 
roche  that  was  the  envy  of  all  connoisseurs." 

Aubrey  Beardsley  had  so  keen  a  sense  of  verbal  deport- 
ment that  there  is  conscious  style  in  almost  every  sentence 
he  wrote.  So  insistent  is  this  sense  of  form  that  the  matter 
of  his  slight  literary  achievement,  unusual  though  it  is, 
retires  before  his  manner.  So  mannered  was  he  at  times 
that  one  questions  his  sincerity.  It  is  as  though  he  adopted 
a  decadent  prose  as  a  prank  and  awoke  to  find  the  result  a 
masterpiece.  His  preciosity  is  so  ordered  and  elegant,  and 
so  deliberate  in  aim  and  intent,  that  it  becomes  something 
more  than  a  freakish  whim.  Could  prose,  for  instance, 
have  more  grace  than  the  dedicatory  epistle  of  Under 
the  Hill  ? 

"  I  must  crave  yom*  forgiveness  for  addressing  you  in  a 
language  other  than  the  Roman,"  he  writes,  "  but  my  small 
freedom  in  Latinity  forbids  me  to  wander  beyond  the  idiom 
of  my  vernacular.  I  would  not  for  the  world  that  your 
delicate  Southern  ear  should  be  offended  by  a  barbarous 
assault  of  rude  and  Gothic  words  ;  but  methinks  no  language 
is  rude  that  can  boast  polite  AVTiters,  and  not  a  few  have 
flom-ished  in  this  country  in  times  past,  bringing  our  common 
speech  to  very  great  perfection.  In  the  present  age,  alas  ! 
our  pens  are  ravished  by  unlettered  authors  and  unmannered 
critics,  that  make  a  havoc  rather  than  a  building,  a  wilder- 
ness rather  than  a  garden.  But,  alack  !  what  boots  it  to 
drop  tears  upon  the  preterit  ?  " 

There  we  have  the  polite  \\Titer  of  all  time,  deftly  using 
the  "  conceit  "  of  his  period  with  a  relish  appropriate  enough 
in  a  writer  whose  literature  was  a  by-product  of  a  graphic 
art  whose  every  line  was  fraught  with  strutting  imagery 
and  elegantly  laboured  poses.     ''  From  the  point  of  a  precise 


138  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

toilet,"  he  writes,  in  the  opening  paragraph  of  the  romance, 
"  the  fingers  wandered,  quelHng  the  Httle  mutinies  of  cravat 
and  rufHe."  Again  he  speaks  of  "taper-time"  and  the 
"  slender  voices  of  the  fairies,"  and  of  Venus  standing  before 
her  mirror,  "in  a  flutter  of  frilled  things,"  displaying  neck 
and  shoulders  "  so  wonderfully  drawn  "  and  "  little  malicious 
breasts"  which  were  "full  of  the  irritation  of  loveliness 
that  can  never  be  entirely  comprehended,  or  ever  enjoyed  to 
the  utmost. "  Master  of  the  Purple  Patch,  Beardsley  knew 
also  how  to  weave  gorgeous  tapestries  of  words  delighting 
by  their  very  richness  : 

"The  place  where  he  stood  waved  drowsily  with  strange 
flowers  heavy  with  perfume,  dripping  with  odours.  Gloomy 
and  nameless  weeds  not  to  be  found  in  Mentzelius.  Huge 
moths  so  richly  winged  they  must  have  banqueted  upon 
tapestries  and  royal  stuffs,  slept  on  the  pillars  that  flank 
either  side  of  the  gateway,  and  the  eyes  of  all  the  moths 
remained  open,  and  were  burning  and  bursting  with  a  mesh 
of  veins.  The  pillars  were  fashioned  in  some  pale  stone,  and 
rose  up  like  hymns  in  the  praise  of  Venus,  for,  from  cap  to 
base,  each  one  was  carved  with  loving  sculptures,  showing 
such  a  cunning  invention  and  such  a  curious  knowledge  that 
Tannhauser  lingered  not  a  little  in  reviewing  them." 

In  their  search  for  reality,  and  their  desire  to  extend  the 
boundaries  of  sensation,  the  writers  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties 
sought  to  capture  and  steep  their  art  in  what  was  sensuous 
and  luscious,  in  all  that  was  coloured  and  perfmned.  Oscar 
Wilde  never  tired  of  decorating  his  prose  with  unfamiliar 
imagery  and  incongruous  colour  words.  He  mastered  every 
literary  fashion  of  the  time,  wielding  with  like  skill  the 
methods  of  purple  patch,  preciosity,  epigram,  paradox  and 
conceit.  Dorian  Gray  is  a  piece  of  literary  jewellery  ;  pea- 
cock phrases,  glowing  periods  and  verbal  surprises  embellish- 
ing every  page.  He  speaks  of  the  sunlight  slipping  "  over 
the  polished  leaves  ";  of  "the  green  lacquer  leaves  of  the 
ivy  "  ;  and  "the  blue  cloud-shadows  "  chasing  "themselves 
across  the  grass  hke  swallows  " ;  of  "  the  stained  trumpet  of 


PURPLE  PATCHES  AND  FINE  PHRASES   139 

Tyrian  convolvulus."  "The  green  night  of  its  leaves  will 
hold  its  purple  stars,"  he  says  of  the  clematis.  An  emotional 
change  in  a  woman  gives  him  a  chance  of  such  literary  efflor- 
escence as  :  "A  rose  shook  in  her  blood,  and  shadowed  her 
cheeks.  Quick  breath  parted  the  petals  of  her  lips."  And 
the  homogenic  love  of  Michelangelo  he  describes  as  being 
"carved  in  the  coloured  marbles  of  a  sonnet-sequence." 
The  following  colour  phrases  are  common  throughout  his 
works: — "nacre-coloured  air,"  "apricot-coloured  light," 
"  rose-coloured  joy,"  "  crocus-coloured  robe,"  and  "  sulphur- 
coloured  roses."  "Swinging  censers"  are  compared  with 
"  great  gilt  flowers,"  and  he  speaks  of  the"  jade-green  piles 
of  vegetables  "  in  Covent  Garden. 

The  keen  colour  sense  of  the  period  manifested  itself  in 
many  other  directions,  particularly  in  certain  characteristic 
book  titles,  such  as  The  Yellow  Book,  Grey  Roses,  The  Green 
Carnation,  A  Yellow  Astei;  Green  Fire  and  The  Colour  of  Life. 
It  would  seem  as  though  the  Impressionist  painters  had  made 
the  world  more  conscious  of  the  effects  of  light,  and  inspired 
WTiters  with  a  desire  to  seek  out  colour  visions  for  themselves, 
although  most  were  content  to  look  at  the  new  prismatic 
sights  through  the  eyes  of  Monet  and  Pissarro.  In  an  earlier 
chapter  I  referred  to  the  fashion  of  yellow,  iDut  this  colour 
was  not  the  only  fashion.  Green  had  still  many  devotees. 
Oscar  Wilde  had  refen-ed  to  this  taste  as  "  that  curious  love 
of  gi'een  which  in  individuals  is  always  the  sign  of  subtle 
artistic  temperament,  and  in  nations  is  said  to  denote  a  laxity 
if  not  a  decadence  of  morals."  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  prob- 
ably taking  his  cue  from  the  foregoing  famous  declaration, 
wrote,  in  Prose  Fancies  (second  series,  1896)  :  "  Green  must 
always  have  a  large  following  among  artists  and  art  lovers  ; 
for,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  an  appreciation  of  it  is  a  sure 
sign  of  a  subtle  artistic  temperament.  There  is  something 
not  quite  good,  something  almost  sinister,  about  it — at  least, 
in  its  more  complex  forms,  though  in  its  simple  form,  as  we 
find  it  in  outdoor  nature,  it  is  innocent  enough  ;  and,  in- 
deed, is  it  not  used  in  colloquial  metaphor  as  an  adjective 
for  innocence  itself  ?    Innocence  has  but  two  colours,  white 


140  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

or  green.  But  Becky  Sharp's  eyes  also  were  green, 
and  the  green  of  the  aesthete  does  not  suggest  innocence. 
There  will  always  be  weai'ers  of  the  green  carnation ; 
but  the  popular  vogue  which  green  has  enjoyed  for  the 
last  ten  or  fifteen  years  is  probably  passing.  Even  the 
aesthete  himself  would  seem  to  be  growing  a  little  weary  of 
its  indefinitely  divided  tones,  and  to  be  anxious  for  a  colour 
sensation  somewhat  more  positive  than  those  to  be  gained 
from  almost  imperceptible  nuances  of  green.  Jaded  with 
over-refinements  and  super- subtleties,  we  seem  in  many 
directions  to  be  harking  back  to  the  primary  colours  of  life. 
Blue,  crude  and  unsoftcned,  and  a  form  of  magenta  have 
recently  had  a  short  innings  ;  and  now  the  triumph  of  yellow 
is  imminent.  Of  course,  a  love  for  green  implies  some  regard 
for  yellow,  and  in  our  so-called  aesthetic  renaissance  the  sun- 
flower went  before  the  green  carnation — which  is,  indeed, 
the  badge  of  but  a  small  schism  of  aesthetes,  and  not  worn  by 
the  great  body  of  the  more  catholic  lovers  of  beauty."  But 
an  examination  of  the  belles  lettres  of  the  period  proves  that 
neither  yellow  nor  green  predominated,  but  that  the  average 
taste  seemed  to  lead  towards  the  sum-total  and  climax  of  all 
colours — white. 

White  gleamed  through  the  most  scarlet  desires  and  the 
most  purple  ideas  of  the  decade,  just  as  its  experimental  vices 
went  hand  in  hand  with  virtue.  In  midmost  rapture  of 
abandonment  the  decadents  adored  innocence,  and  the  fre- 
quent use  of  the  idea  of  whiteness,  with  its  correlatives, 
silver,  moonlight,  starlight,  ivory,  alabaster  and  marble,  was 
perhaps  more  than  half-conscious  symbolism.  It  had  also  a 
dash  of  the  debauchee's  love  of  virginity. 

Walter  Pater  named  a  noble  chapter  in  Marius  the  Epi- 
curean, "White  Nights,"  after  the  name  of  the  house  of 
Marius,  with  full  sense  of  the  symbolic  meaning  of  the  word  ; 
and  he  bore  out  this  idea  by  a  quotation  from  an  old  German 
mystic,  who  said  :  "  The  red  rose  came  first,  the  mystery  of 
so-called  white  things,"  as  being  "  ever  an  afterthought — the 
doubles,  or  seconds,  of  real  things,  and  themselves  but  half- 
real,  half-material — the  white  queen,  the  white  witch,  the 


PURPLE  PATCHES  AND  FINE  PHRASES   141 

White  Mass,  which,  as  the  Black  Mass  is  a  travesty  of  the 
true  Mass  turned  to  evil  by  horrible  old  witches,  is  celebrated 
by  young  candidates  for  the  priesthood  with  an  unconse- 
crated  host,  by  way  of  rehearsal."  So  the  idea  of  whiteness 
had  relationship  in  the  work  of  decadent  writers  with  the 
"  so-called  mystery  of  white  things."  No  other  poet  of  the 
period  expressed  the  idea  of  the  mystery  of  white  innocence 
so  immaculately  as  Alice  Meynell  : 

"  She  walks — the  lady  of  my  delight — 

A  shepherdess  of  sheep. 
Her  flocks  are  thoughts.     She  keeps  them  white  ; 

She  guards  them  from  the  steep. 
She  feeds  them  on  the  fragrant  height, 

And  folds  them  in  for  sleep.'* 

The  same  idea  found  exponents  in  other  poets.  Francis 
Thompson  refers  to  "  a  fair  white  silence."  Ernest  Dowson 
was  dominated  by  a  sense  of  whiteness.  One  cannot  forget 
his  "  dancing  to  put  thy  pale  lost  lihes  out  of  mind,"  and  The 
Pierrot  of  the  Minute  is  a  veritable  symphony  in  white.  He 
calls  for  "  white  music,"  and  the  Moon  Maiden  rides  through 
the  skies  "  drawn  by  a  team  of  milk-white  butterflies,"  and 
further  on  in  the  same  poem  we  have  a  palace  of  many 
rooms  : 

"  Within  the  fairest,  clad  in  purity, 
Our  mother  dwelt  immemorially  : 

Moon-calm,  moon-pale,  with  moon-stones  on  her  gown. 
The  floor  she  treads  with  little  pearls  is  sown.   .  .  ."- 

And  in  another  poem  he  sings  : 
"  Mark  the  day  white  on  which  the  Fates  have  smiled. '- 

The  recognition  and  use  of  the  idea  of  white  was,  of  course, 
not  always  mystical,  or  even  symbolical ;  in  the  majority  of 
cases  it  was  frankly  sensuous,  following  in  words  that  delight 
in  whiteness  which  Whistler  had  expressed  in  pictures. 
W.  B.  Yeats  sings  of  the  "white  breast  of  the  dim  sea," 
Lionel  Johnson  of 

"  Cloisters,  in  moonlight 
Branching  dark,  or  touched  with  white  : 


142  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Round  old,  chill  aisles,  where  moon-smitten 
Blanches  the  Oraie,  written 
Under  each  worn,  old-world  face 
Graven  on  Death's  holy  place  !  " 

Oscar  Wilde  refers  often  to  white  things  :  "  Slie  shook 
like  a  white  narcissus  " ;  "  blue  petals  of  flame  rimmed 
with  white  fire  "  ;  and  "  white  vultures  with  gilded  claws." 
Nor  must  we  overlook  the  "  milk-white  "  unicorn  in  Aubrey 
Beardsley's  romance.  Hubert  Crackanthorpe's  purple 
patches  of  travel,  Vignettes,  has  a  reference  to  some  white 
thing  on  almost  every  page — white  towns,  white  houses, 
white  roads  and  white  churches.  One  of  the  most  charm- 
ing of  Arthur  Symons'  more  artificial  KtIcs  celebrates 
whiteness  in  girlhood  : 

"  White  girl,  your  flesh  is  lilies 
Gro\\Ti  'neath  a  frozen  moon. 
So  still  is 

The  rapture  of  your  swoon 
Of  whiteness,  snow  or  lilies."- 

And  one  of  Richard  Le  Gallienne's  most  "precious" 
Prose  Fancies  is  dedicated,  under  the  title,  "  White  Soul,"  to 
the  same  theme  in  womanhood.    It  is  prefaced  by  these  lines  : 

"  What  is  so  white  in  the  world,  my  love. 
As  thy  maiden  soul — 
The  dove  that  flies 
Softly  all  day  wdthin  thy  eyes. 
And  nests  within  thine  heart  at  night  ? 
Nothing  so  white." 

In  the  first  paragraph  of  this  essay  he  demands  wdth  quaint 
conceit  the  whole  gamut  of  whiteness  for  the  glorification  of 
such  innocence  :  "  Whitest  paper,  newest  pen,  ear  sensitive, 
tremulous  ;  heart  pure  and  mind  open,  broad  and  clear  as 
the  blue  air  for  the  most  dehcate  gossamer  thoughts  to  wing 
through  ;  and  snow-white  words,  lily-white  words,  words  of 
ivory  and  pearl,  words  of  silver  and  alabaster,  words  white 
as  ha\\i:horn  and  daisy,  words  white  as  morning  milk, 
words  '  whiter  than  Venus'  doves,  and  softer  than  the  down 
beneath  their  wings  ' — virginal,  saintlike,  nunner}'  words." 


I 


PURPI.E  PATCHES  AND  FINE  PHRASES   143 

But  always  the  outstanding  literary  accessory  of  the 
Nineties  was  surprise,  in  the  form  of  paradox,  or  often  little 
more  than  verbal.  In  the  latter  surprise  found  expression  in 
the  use  of  strange  words,  the  result  of  resurrections  from  old 
books  or  from  scientific  and  technical  sources,  the  jargon  of 
special  sections  of  humanity,  and  the  slang  of  the  streets. 
French  words  and  phrases  were  also  in  great  favour. 
Several  of  the  most  striking  verbal  effects  of  the  time  were 
obtained  by  the  transposition  of  words  from  one  set  of  ideas 
to  another,  after  the  manner  of  Baudelaire's  theory  of  corre- 
spondences. Whistler  was  the  earliest  to  use  the  method  in 
this  country  when  he  named  pictures  after  musical  terms, 
"Symphonies,"  "Harmonies"  and  "Arrangements." 
Henley,  imitating  Whistler,  took  the  idea  a  step  further  by 
naming  the  poems  in  his  London  Voluntaries,  "  Andante 
con  Moto,"  " Scherzando, "  "Largo  e  Mesto  "  and  "Allegro 
Maestoso."  From  such  normal  manifestations  of  the  theory 
it  spread  through  all  definitely  fin  de  siecle  writing  from 
Henry  Harland's  reference  to  a  young  person  who  "  took  to 
rouge  and  powder,  and  introduced  falsetto  notes  into  her 
toilet  "  ;  George  Egerton's  firelight  which  picks  out  "  auto- 
graphs past  emotions  have  traced  "  on  a  woman's  face  ;  to 
Oscar  Wilde's  already  quoted  "  coloured  marble  of  a  sonnet- 
sequence. "  Aubrey  Beardsley's  "  decollete  spirits  of  aston- 
ishing conversation,"  and  Richard  Le  Galhenne's  "London 
spread  out  beneath  us  like  a  huge  black  velvet  flower,  and 
rows  of  ant-hke  fire-flies  moving  in  slow  zigzag  processions 
along  and  across  its  petals." 

The  use  of  strange  words  and  bizarre  images  was  but 
another  outcome  of  the  prevalent  desire  to  astonish.  At  no 
period  in  English  history  had  the  obvious  and  the  common- 
place been  in  such  disrepute.  The  age  felt  it  was  complex 
and  sought  to  interpret  its  complexities,  not  by  simplicity, 
in  spite  of  Oscar  Wilde's  statement  that  simplicity  was  the 
last  refuge  of  complexity,  but  by  suddenness  of  epigram  and 
paradox  combined  with  delicate  nuances  of  expression. 
Literary  style  resembled  more  than  anything  else  a  dance  in 
quick  time  gradually  resolving  itself  into  the  stateliness  of 


144  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

the  niinuct.  So  fearful  were  writers  of  being  convicted  of 
obviousness  that  tliey  often  convicted  themselves  of  obscurity. 
In  the  same  way  they  admired  what  were  then  considered 
to  be  the  obscurities  of  Meredith.  Younger  writers  realised 
the  need  of  a  suggestive  note  in  literature.  They  agreed 
with  Meredith  that  "  the  art  of  the  pen  is  to  rouse  the  inward 
vision,"  and  instead  of  labouring  protracted  descriptions 
they  sought  to  "  spring  imagination  with  a  word  or  a  phrase. " 
Literature  that  had  been  exposite  became  apposite.  Fine 
shades  of  meaning  and  niceties  of  observation  slipped  into 
swift  revealing  sentences,  and  for  the  first  time  temperament 
was  studied  as  a  thing  in  itself.  The  idea  of  Impressionism 
also  dominated  style,  but  the  best  WTiters  end  at  intensity, 
suggestiveness,  reality  and,  above  all,  brightness,  rather  than 
novelty,  preferring  to  achieve  this  last  as  a  by-product. 
They  strove  to  create  what  was  called  "atmosphere,"  leav- 
ing much  to  the  intelligence  of  the  reader,  who,  to  do  him 
justice,  often  proved  himself  worthy  of  the  compliment. 
Such  volumes  of  studies  in  Impressionism  as  George 
Egerton's  Keynotes,  G.  S.  Sti-eet's  Ejjisodes,  Hubert  Crackan- 
thorpe's  Wreckage,  George  Fleming's  Women's  Tragedies, 
Henry  Harland's  Mademoiselle  Miss  and  The  Lady  Para- 
mount, John  Oliver  Hobbes'  Some  Emotions  and  a  Moral, 
Vincent  O 'Sullivan's  and — to  a  lesser  degree — the  studies  of 
Ella  d'Arcy  and  H.  D.  Lowry  are  steeped  in  this  new  spirit. 
Whilst  Max  Beerbohm,  Oscar  Wilde,  Richard  Le  Gallienne, 
Alice  Meynell  and  Vernon  Lee  distilled  their  own  personality 
into  essays  in  the  same  key.  The  subtle  intensity  of  this 
style  may  be  illustrated  by  a  quotation  from  Keynotes  ; 

"  The  paleness  of  some  strong  feeling  tinges  her  face,  a 
slight  trembling  runs  through  her  frame.  Her  inner  soul- 
struggle  is  acting  as  a  strong  developing  fluid  upon  a  highly 
sensitised  plate  ;  anger,  scorn,  pity,  contempt  chase  one 
another  like  shadows  across  her  face.  Her  eyes  rest  upon 
the  empty  frame,  and  the  plain  white  space  becomes  alive 
to  her.  Her  mind's  eye  fills  it  with  a  picture  it  once  held  in 
its  dainty  embrace.     A  rare  head  amongst  the  rarest  heads 


PURPLE  PATCHES  AND  FINE  PHRASES   145 

of  men,  with  its  crest  of  hair  tossed  back  from  the  great  brow, 
its  proud  poise  and  the  impress  of  grand  confident  compelling 
genius  that  reveals  itself  one  scarce  knows  how  ;  with  the 
brute  possibility  of  an  untamed,  natural  man  lurking  about 
the  mouth  and  powerful  throat.  She  feels  the  subduing 
smile  of  eyes  that  never  failed  to  make  her  weak  as  a  child 
under  their  gaze,  and  tame  as  a  hungry  bird.  She  stretches 
out  her  hands  with  a  pitiful  little  movement,  and  then,  re- 
membering, lets  them  drop  and  locks  them  until  the  knuckles 
stand  out  whitely.  She  shuts  her  eyes,  and  one  tear  after 
the  other  starts  from  beneath  her  lids,  trickles  down  her 
cheeks,  and  drops  with  a  splash  into  her  lap.  She  does  not 
sob,  only  cries  quietly  and  she  sees,  as  if  she  held  the  letter  in 
her  hand,  the  words  that  decided  her  fate." 

Alice  Meynell  in  her  essays  is  equally  modern  with  less 
emotional  themes  as,  for  instance,  in  the  opening  essay  of  her 
volume  The  Colour  of  Life  : 

"  Red  has  been  praised  for  its  nobility  as  the  colour  of  life. 
But  the  true  colour  of  life  is  not  red.  Red  is  the  colour  of 
violence  or  of  life  broken,  edited  and  published.  Or  if  red  is 
indeed  the  colour  of  life,  it  is  so  only  on  condition  that  it  is  not 
seen.  Once  fully  visible,  red  is  the  colour  of  life  violated, 
and  in  the  act  of  betrayal  and  of  waste.  Red  is  the  secret  of 
life,  and  not  the  manifestation  thereof.  It  is  one  of  the  things 
the  value  of  which  is  secrecy,  one  of  the  talents  that  are  to  be 
hidden  in  a  napkin.  The  true  colour  of  life  is  the  colour  of 
the  body,  the  colour  of  the  covered  red,  the  implicit  and  not 
explicit  red  of  the  living  heart  and  the  pulses.  It  is  the 
modest  colour  of  the  unpublished  blood." 

The  arts  of  epigram  and  paradox  with  their  repeated 
surprises  were  so  commanded  by  the  genius  of  Oscar  Wilde 
that  others  who  followed  in  his  steps  tended  to  appear  like 
imitators.  There  is  something  preposterous  and  irresistibly 
funny  about  his  wittiest  half  truth,  and  the  best  of  his  state- 
ments  were   often   no   more   than   that.     "One   of   those 


146  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

characteristic  British  faces  that,  once  seen,  are  never  re- 
membered," is  a  good  specimen  of  Wilde's  method,  with 
sucli  sayings  as  :  "  Brute  reason  is  quite  unbearable.  There 
is  sometliing  unfair  about  its  use.  It  is  hitting  below  the  in- 
tellect " ;  and  "  Her  capacity  for  family  affection  is  extra- 
ordinary. When  her  third  husband  died,  her  hair  turned 
quite  gold  from  grief, "  and  "  In  married  life  three  is  company 
and  two  is  none  " ;  and  "  Only  dull  people  are  brilliant  at 
breakfast  ";  and  again  "One  can  resist  every  tiling  except 
temptation."  The  fun  of  such  sayings  does  not  only  depend 
upon  the  shock  of  half  truth,  they  contain  also  a  wild  philo- 
sophy which  is  irresistible  because  it  defies  immediate  re- 
futation by  sheer  brightness.  Wilde  created  a  fashion  in 
such  sayings  ;  the  word  "  brilliant  "  was  appropriately  used 
to  describe  them,  and  their  popularity  created  a  ^v^dely 
practised  game  of  intellectual  frivolity.  It  was  not  fashion- 
able, as  the  saying  went,  "  to  take  yourself  seriously,"  and 
the  verbal  cleverness  invented  by  Oscar  Wilde  was  adopted 
cheerfully  as  a  mask  for  the  seriousness  of  life. 

One  MTiter  whose  gifts  of  wit  were  at  all  comparable  \\ith 
those  of  Oscar  Wilde  had  the  courage  to  use  his  brilliance  to 
throw  light  on  a  definite  moral  purpose.  The  attitude  he 
adopted  was  in  the  nature  of  a  Puritan  reply  to  the  paganism 
of  Wilde,  and  he  used  similar  weapons  with  equal  skill,  drama 
and  fiction,  conversation  and  oratory,  flashing  sharp  with 
a  more  solid  intention.  "  Better  see  rightly  on  a  poimd  a 
week,"  he  said,  "than  squint  on  a  miUion."  "Freedom," 
he  said  again,  "means  responsibility;  that's  why  most 
people  fear  it."  There  was  something  more  than  cleverness 
in  such  sayings,  something  more  than  art.  Bernard  Shaw, 
who  uttered  them,  brought  with  him  an  atmosphere  of  con- 
viction. That  attitude  insisted  upon  art  and  cleverness 
being  discontented  with  themselves ;  it  strove  to  bring 
intellect  back  once  more  from  the  contemplation  of  itself 
to  the  realisation  of  a  more  orderly  life. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   DISCOVERY   OF  THE   CELT 

"Strange  reversals,  strange  fulfilments  may  lie  on  the  lap  of  the  gods,  but  we 
have  no  knowledge  of  these,  and  hear  neither  the  high  laughter  nor  the  far  voices. 
But  we  front  a  possible  because  a  spiritual  destiny  greater  than  the  height  of 
imperial  fortunes,  and  have  that  which  may  send  our  voices  further  than  the 
trumpets  of  east  and  west.  Through  ages  of  slow  westering,  till  now  we  face  the 
sundown  seas,  we  have  learned  in  continual  vicissitude  that  there  are  secret  ways 
whereon  armies  cannot  march.  And  this  has  been  given  to  us,  a  more  ardent 
longing,  a  more  rapt  passion  in  the  things  of  outward  beauty  and  in  the  things  of 
spiritual  beauty.  Nor  it  seems  to  me  is  there  any  sadness,  or  only  the  serene 
sadness  of  a  great  day's  end,  that,  to  others,  we  reveal  in  our  best  the  genius  of  a 
race  whose  farewell  is  in  a  tragic  lighting  of  torches  of  beauty  around  its  grave." 

P'lONA    MACLEOD. 

ERNEST  RENAN  discovered  the  Celt  somewhere 
about  the  year  1856  ;  but  in  the  year  1891  Grant 
Allen  made  the  far  more  interesting  discovery  that 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  Celtic  movement  in  English  art. 
In  a  vivacious  article  in  The  Fortnightly  Review  he  made  it 
seem  as  if  the  Celtic  influence  dominated  the  field  of  artistic 
activity.  "  The  return  wave  of  Celtic  influence  over  Teu- 
tonic or  Teutonised  England  has  brought  with  it  many 
strange  things,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent."    He  wrote  : 

"It  has  brought  with  it  Home  Rule,  Land  Nationalisa- 
tion, Socialism,  Radicalism,  the  Reverend  Hugh  Price 
Hughes,  the  Tithes  War,  the  Crofter  Question,  the  Plan  of 
Campaign.  It  has  brought  fresh  forces  into  political  life — 
the  eloquent  young  Irishman,  the  perfervid  Highland  Scot, 
the  enthusiastic  Welshman,  the  hard-headed  Cornish  miner  : 
Methodism,  Catholicism,  the  Eisteddfod,  the  parish  priest, 
New  Tipperary,  the  Hebrides,  the  Scotland  Division  of 
Liverpool ;  Conybeare,  Cunninghame  Graham,  Michael 
DaAdtt,  Holyoake  ;  Co-operation,  the  Dockers,  The  Star,  the 
Fabians,  Powers  hitherto  undreamt  of  surge  up  in  our 
147 


148  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

parlianicntai  y  world  in  the  Sextons,  the  Healys,  the  Athcrley 
Joneses,  the  McDonalds,  the  O'Briens,  the  Dillons,  the 
Morgans,  the  Abrahams  ;  in  our  wider  public  life  in  the 
William  Morrises,  the  Annie  Besants,  the  Father  Humphreys, 
the  Archbishop  Crokes,  the  General  Booths,  the  Alfred 
Russel  Wallaces,  the  John  Stuart  Blackies,  the  Joseph 
Arches,  the  Bernard  Shaws,  the  John  Burnses  ;  the  People's 
Palace,  the  Celtic  Society  of  Scotland,  the  Democratic 
Federation,  the  Socialist  League.  Anybody  who  looks  over 
any  great  list  of  names  in  any  of  the  leading  modern  move- 
ments in  England — from  the  London  County  Council  to  the 
Lectures  at  South  Place — will  see  in  a  moment  that  the 
New  Radicalism  is  essentially  a  Celtic  product.  The  Celt  in 
Britain,  like  Mr  Burne  Jones's  enchanted  princess,  has  lain 
silent  for  ages  in  an  enforced  long  sleep  ;  but  the  spirit  of 
the  century,  pushing  aside  the  weeds  and  briars  of  privilege 
and  caste,  has  set  free  the  sleeper  at  last.  ..." 

Sufficiently  matter-of-fact  in  his  assertions.  Grant  Allen's 
enthusiasm  was  just  a  little  premature.  But  he  was  only  a 
year  or  so  too  early,  and  if  he  had  stayed  his  pen  a  little  while 
he  would  have  been  able  to  announce  the  real  Celtic  revival 
of  the  Nineties  which  received  its  first  strong  impetus  from 
the  genius  of  William  Butler  Yeats. 

The  Celtic  movement  as  expressed  in  the  various  fields 
of  activity  named  by  Grant  Allen  was  at  the  da\vn  of  the 
Eighteen  Nineties  quite  free  of  self-consciousness.  It  was  not 
really  a  "  movement  "  at  all ;  and  even  where  Grant  Allen 
correctly  indicates  Celtic  influence,  that  influence  is  the  ac- 
cidental outcome  of  the  fact  that  those  who  Avere  responsible 
for  it  happened  to  have  been  Celts  or  to  have  had  Celtic  blood 
in  their  veins.  In  many  of  his  examples  it  would  have  been 
of  equal  pertinence  to  trace  Teutonic  or  Latin  influences. 
The  real  Celtic  revival,  as  a  revival,  began  with  the  Irish 
Literary  movement.  W.  B.  Yeats  published  his  first  book 
of  poems  in  Dublin  in  1885  ;  but  it  was  not  until  he  issued 
The  Wanderings  of  Oisin,  and  Othei'  Poems,  in  1889,  that  a 
new  voice  singing  a  song  as  old  as  time  was  recognised. 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  CELT       149 

With  the  publication  of  The  Countess  Kathleen,  in  1892,  and 
the  Celtic  Twilight,  in  1893,  this  new  voice  was  hailed  as 
sometliing  more  than  new  ;  it  was  hailed  as  a  strong  and 
persuasive  voice  that  was  already  attracting  to  itself 
affinities  in  the  land  of  its  origin.  Among  these  were  Dr 
Douglas  Hyde,  Lady  Gregorj^  George  Russell  (A.E.),  Lionel 
Johnson,  John  Eglinton  and,  later,  and  with  less  certainty 
from  the  Celtic  standpoint,  George  Moore.  Dr  Douglas 
Hyde  and  Lady  Gregory  were  devoting  their  attention  to 
the  ancient  legends  and  songs  of  Ireland,  and  their  studies 
ultimately  resulted  in  the  publication  of  books  such  as  the 
Love  Songs  of  Connacht  and  Gods  and  Fighting  Men.  George 
Russell  and  W.  B.  Yeats  linked  up  the  natural  mysticism  of 
the  Celt  with  Theosophy,  besides  contributing  to  the  move- 
ment poems  of  rare  beauty.  John  Eglinton  worked  along 
lines  of  philosophic  interpretation  which  he  expressed  in  Two 
Essays  on  the  Remnant,  published  in  1895.  George  Moore 
introduced  an  equally  Celtic  sense  of  fact  into  a  movement 
w^hich  might  otherwise  have  been  a  record  of  dreams. 

In  1891  W.  B.  Yeats  founded  the  National  Literary  Society, 
which,  seven  years  later,  brought  into  existence  the  Irish 
Literary  Theatre  at  Dublin.  The  object  of  the  Irish  Literary 
Theatre  w'as  first  and  foremost  to  create  a  medium  for  the 
production  of  "  something  better  than  the  ordinary  play  of 
conmierce,"  and  by  so  doing  to  augment  the  chances  of  a 
native  Irish  dramatic  renaissance.  The  first  performances  of 
the  society  took  place  in  1899,  when  two  plays.  The  Countess 
Kathleen,  by  W.  B.  Yeats,  and  The  Heather  Field,  by  Edward 
Martyn,  were  produced  at  the  Antient  Concert  Rooms, 
Dublin.  Next  year  the  Irish  Literary  Theatre  produced  five 
plays  at  the  Gaiety  Theatre,  Dublin.  These  were  :  The 
Bending  of  the  Bough,  by  George  IMoore  ;  The  Last  Feast  of 
the  Fraima,  by  Alice  Milligan ;  Mceve,  by  Edward  JNIartyn. 
In  1901  at  the  same  theatre  were  produced  Diarmuid  and 
Grania,  by  W.  B.  Yeats  and  George  Moore  ;  and  a  Gaelic 
play.  The  Twisting  of  the  Rope,  by  Douglas  Hyde.  These 
performances  closed  the  first  attempt  in  Ireland  to  create  a 
national  drama.     During  its  brief  life,  the  Irish  Literary 


150  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Theatre  recorded  its  views  and  achievements  in  an  occasional 
publication  called  Beltainc  (1899-1900),  which  was  the  fore- 
runner of  Samhain,  as  the  Irish  Literary  Theatre  was  of  the 
National  Theatre  Society  Ltd.,  and  its  famous  playhouse  in 
Abbey  Street,  Dublin.  The  dramatic  and  literary  awaken- 
ing in  Ireland  found  expression  in  the  local  Press,  llie  Daily 
Express  of  Dublin  devoting  considerable  space  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  literature  and  art,  to  which  most  of  the  young 
Irish  writers  contributed. 

Side  by  side  with  the  development  of  the  Celtic  revival 
in  Ireland  there  were  Celtic  awakenings  of  a  lesser  degree  in 
Scotland  and  Wales.  The  chief  activity  of  the  Scottish  re- 
vival was  at  Edinburgh,  where  Patrick  Geddes  produced  four 
numbers  of  a  quarterly  review  called  the  Evergreen  in  1895 
and  1896.  The  idea  seemed  to  be  to  make  each  number 
complete  in  itself  and  so  to  arrange  the  contents  that  they 
should  serve  as  comments  on  art  and  life  apropos  the  four 
seasons.  Among  the  literary  contributors  are  found  the 
names  of  Patrick  Geddes,  Sir  Noel  Paton,  S.  R.  Crockett, 
William  Sharp,  "Fiona  Macleod,"  Sir  George  Douglas, 
Riccardo  Stephens  and  Gabriel  Setoun.  The  French  com- 
munist, Elisee  Reclus,  was  also  a  contributor.  All  the 
decorations  were  in  black  and  white,  and  the  artists  included 
Pittendrigh  Macgillivray,  John  Duncan,  E.  A.  Hornel  and 
James  Cadenhead. 

The  most  important  literary  product  of  the  Celtic  revival 
in  Scotland  was  the  work  of  the  mysterious  personality 
"Fiona  Macleod,"  whom  we  now  know  to  have  been  the 
novelist  and  critic,  William  Sharp.  "  Fiona  Macleod 's  " 
first  volume,  Pharais  ;  a  Romance  of  the  Isles,  was  published 
by  Moray,  of  Derby,  in  1894  ;  other  works  from  the  same 
pen,  such  as  The  Washer  of  the  Ford,  were  published  by 
Patrick  Geddes  and  Colleagues,  at  Edinburgh.  The  work  of 
"  Fiona  Macleod  "  possessed  all  the  more  pronounced  char- 
acteristics of  Celtic  art,  with  an  insistence  upon  mystical 
aloofness  so  dehberate  as  to  suggest  a  determmation  to  be 
Celtic  at  all  costs ;  a  pose  carried  off  successfully  only  by 
rare  literary  skill. 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  CELT       151 

The  movement  in  Wales  was  far  less  definite.  There  was 
a  decided  quickening  of  social  consciousness  among  the  Celts, 
which  expressed  itself  in  ardent  political  activities  of  a 
Radical  tendency.  The  extreme  section  was  represented  by 
the  Labour  leader,  "Mabon,"  but  the  main  current  of  the 
national  political  genius  found  its  fullest  expression  in  the 
vigorous  personality  of  a  rising  young  politician,  Lloyd  George, 
who  was  later  to  become  the  chief  protagonist  of  Joseph 
Chamberlain  during  the  Jingo  outbreak  of  the  final  years 
of  the  decade.  Literary  activity  was  confined  to  a  renewed 
interest  in  national  myth  and  tradition,  an  interest  aroused  by 
the  magnificent  collection  of  legends  made  by  Lady  Charlotte 
Guest  in  Tlie  Mabinogian.  But  there  was  no  distinctive 
modern  art  or  literary  production.  The  Welsh  poetic 
renaissance,  save  for  such  hints  as  are  to  be  found  in  the 
poems  of  Ernest  Rhys,  was  unborn,  and  Wales  was  still 
under  the  impression  that  all  things  associated  with  the 
theatre  were  evil ;  a  view  that  was  not  to  be  altered  until 
well  into  the  present  century. 

These  various  expressions  of  the  Celtic  renaissance,  rather 
than  those  indicated  by  Grant  Allen,  were  in  the  true  tradi- 
tion of  that  Celtic  spirit  first  interpreted  by  Ernest  Renan  in 
The  Poetry  of  the  Celtic  Races.     Speaking  of  that  race  he  says  : 

"Its  history  is  itself  one  long  lament;  it  still  recalls  its 
exiles,  its  flights  across  the  seas.  If  at  times  it  seems  to  be 
cheerful,  a  tear  is  not  slow  to  glisten  behind  its  smile  ;  it 
does  not  know  that  strange  forgetfulness  of  human  condi- 
tions and  destinies  which  is  called  gaiety.  Its  songs  of  joy 
end  as  elegies  ;  there  is  nothing  to  equal  the  delicious  sadness 
of  its  national  melodies.  One  might  call  them  emanations 
from  on  high  which,  falling  drop  by  di'op  upon  the  soul,  pass 
tlirough  it  like  memories  of  another  world.  Never  have  men 
feasted  so  long  upon  these  solitary  delights  of  the  spirit,  these 
poetic  memories  wliich  simultaneously  intercross  all  the 
sensation  of  fife,  so  vague,  so  deep,  so  penetrative,  that  one 
might  die  from  them,  without  being  able  to  say  whether  it 
was  from  bitterness  or  sweetness.  .  .  .  The  essential  element 


152  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

of  the  Celt's  poetic  life  is  the  adventure— that  is  to  say,  the 
pursuit  of  the  unknown,  an  endless  quest  after  an  object  ever 
flying  from  desire.  It  was  of  this  that  St  Brandam  dreamed, 
that  Peredur  sought  with  his  mystic  chivalry,  that  Knight 
Owen  asked  of  his  subterranean  journeyings.  This  race 
desires  the  infinite,  it  thirsts  for  it,  and  pursues  it  at  all  costs, 
beyond  the  tomb,  beyond  hell  itself." 

The  most  profound  and  the  most  effective  interpreter  of 
that  view  of  life  in  modern  British  literature  is  W.  B.  Yeats. 
It  was  he  who  was  the  chief  figure  of  the  Celtic  Renaissance 
of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  ;  the  artists,  writers  and  politicians 
named  by  Grant  Allen  were  Celts  plajdng  the  Teutonic  game, 
and  winning.  In  Yeats  we  have  the  fullest  expression  of  the 
intellectual  Celt — poet,  mystic  and  patriot — expressing  him- 
self in  an  imaginative  propaganda  which  has  affected  the 
thoughts  and  won  the  appreciation  of  the  English-speaking 
world. 

He  was  born  in  Dublin  in  the  year  1866,  the  son  of  the 
Irish  painter  J.  B.  Yeats,  R.H.A.  Educated  chiefly  in  the 
city  of  his  birth,  he  was  probably  helped  in  the  ripening  of 
his  genius  by  frequent  visits  to  relatives  in  County  Sligo, 
where,  among  a  peasantry  intimate  with  ghosts,  fairies  and 
demons,  he  laid  the  foundations  of  a  wide  knowledge  of  the 
more  remote  characteristics  and  traditions  of  his  country- 
men. Ireland  was  his  home  until  1887.  Later,  the  Yeats 
family  went  to  London,  and  during  the  Nineties  he  lived 
partly  in  the  English  capital  and  partly  in  the  Irish.  His 
aim  in  promoting  the  Irish  Literary  movement  was  the  out- 
come of  the  idea  that  for  Ireland  "  a  national  drama  or 
literature  must  spring  from  a  native  interest  in  life  and  its 
problems,  and  a  strong  capacity  for  life  among  the  people." 
So  by  studying  and  translating  the  Gaelic  legends,  rescuing 
and  recording  in  literary  form  the  folk-tales  of  the  country- 
side, and  inspiring  Irish  wTiters  and  artists  to  interpret  the 
national  individuality  rather  than  that  of  alien  lands,  he 
hoped  to  crystallise  the  scattered  forces  of  Gaelic  energy,  and 
thus  make  a  literature  that  would  stand  towards  Ireland  as 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  CELT       153 

the  literature  of  the  Shakespearean  period  stands  towards 
England.  To  make,  in  short,  the  literature  and  art  of  Ireland 
both  national  and  quick  with  a  life  that  might  be  felt  not 
merely  by  a  select  coterie  of  cultured  enthusiasts,  but  by  the 
whole  nation. 

Working  for  this  idea,  Yeats  gathered  around  him,  as  we 
have  seen,  all  that  was  most  hopeful  in  modern  Irish  letters. 
The  result  to-day  is  that  Ireland  is  no  longer  a  geographical 
expression  with  a  clamorous  voice ;  Ireland  to-day  stands 
among  the  nations  as  a  race  with  a  literature  and  drama 
expressing  its  inmost  spiritual,  intellectual  and  social  needs. 
In  all  save  the  fact  that  this  literature  and  drama  uses  a 
language  which  Ireland,  with  the  rest  of  the  British  Empire 
and  America,  owes  to  the  Anglo-Saxon,  it  is  essentially  Irish 
in  aim  and  expression.  And,  incidentally,  it  has  gone  a  long 
way  towards  exploding  the  idea  that  the  genius  of  Ireland 
found  complete  expression  in  the  Irish  Melodies  of  Tom 
Moore  and  the  melodramatic  heroes  of  Dion  Boucicault. 
"Our  legends,"  says  W.  B.  Yeats,  "are  always  associated 
with  places,  and  not  merely  every  mountain  and  valley,  but 
every  strange  stone  and  little  coppice  has  its  legend,  pre- 
served in  written  or  unAmtten  tradition.  Our  Irish  romantic 
movement  has  arisen  out  of  this  tradition,  and  should  always, 
even  when  it  makes  new  legends  about  traditional  people 
and  things,  be  haunted  by  people  and  places.  It  should 
make  Ireland,  as  Ireland  and  all  other  lands  were  in  ancient 
times,  a  holy  land  to  her  own  people." 

Yeats,  mth  Maeterlinck,  and  other  foreign  symbolists, 
filled  his  song  and  drama  with  the  possibility  of  unexpected 
happenings.  These  works  are  steeped  in  a  different  atmos- 
phere from  that  in  which  we  ordinarily  move.  They  dare  to 
be  unreasonable  ;  to  go  where  Caoltc  ' '  tosses  his  burning 
hair,"  and  Niam  calls  ; 

"  Away,  come  away  ; 
And  brood  no  more  where  the  fire  is  bright  ; 

Filling  thy  heart  with  a  mortal  dream  ; 

For  breasts  are  heaving  and  eyes  a-gleam  ; 
Away,  come  away,  to  the  dim  twiUght.'' 


154  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

In  sucli  imaginative  abandon  there  is  possibility  of  dis- 
covery and  adventure.  America  was  not  discovered  by 
Columbus  sailing  into  uncharted  seas,  but  by  the  imaginative 
impulse  that  foretold  continents  over  the  rim  of  the  known 
world.  So  it  is  that  the  Celtic  dreaming,  made  articulate  by 
Yeats  and  others,  contains  in  its  suggestive  darknesses  more 
wisdom  than  subservience  to  known  things  and  known  ex- 
periences have  contributed  to  men.  The  Celts  have  realised, 
by  intuition  rather  than  by  reason,  what  all  people  of  simple 
imagination  have  realised,  that  life,  as  Renan  says  of  the 
Breton,  is  not  a  personal  adventure  undertaken  by  each  man 
on  his  own  account,  but  a  link  in  a  long  chain,  a  gift  received 
and  handed  on.  In  addition  to  this  idea  of  tradition,  the 
British  Celt  has  realised  and  reasserted  the  further  idea  of 
experience  by  individual  adventure.  W.  B.  Yeats  is  dis- 
tinguished among  Celtic  writers  because  of  this  sense  of 
individuality.  His  work  is  not  merely  pensive  and  wonder- 
stricken  in  the  manner  of  much  traditional  Celtic  art ;  it  is 
thoughtful  and  joyful,  possessing  a  strength  born  of  personal 
happiness  and  individual  wonder.  In  the  retelling  of  the 
tales  of  his  nation  he  has  added  much  of  himself  to  that 
which  "  it  has  taken  generations  to  invent,"  and  he  has  come 
nearer  towards  stimulating  the  creation  of  a  noble  popular 
literature  than  anyone  in  Ireland  since  the  simple  tales 
and  legends  of  Finn  and  Oisin  were  the  commonplaces  of 
the  national  mind. 

There  was  a  wizardry  about  his  songs  quite  new  to  con- 
temporary Ireland.  His  choice  of  words  was  full  of  a  vague 
glimmering  of  unknowTi  things,  while  his  rhythm  haunted 
the  mind  with  the  peculiar  insistence  of  songs  which  have 
stood  age-long  tests  of  familiarity.  But  the  matter  was 
strange  to  customary  hearing,  it  was  redolent  of 

"  The  dim  wisdoms  old  and  deep 
That  God  gives  unto  men  in  sleep. '- 

Celtic  dependence  upon  the  intimation  of  the  inner  con- 
sciousness, however,  did  not  draw  him  away  from  familiar 
things  and  more  obvious  but  none  the  less  profound  sensa- 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  CELT       155 

tions.  He  was  engaged  quite  as  often  with  the  simpler  eon- 
cerns  of  sentiment,  with  the  home  and  the  affections  of  the 
more  human  among  human  beings,  with  "  the  cry  of  a  child 
by  the  roadway,  the  creak  of  a  lumbering  cart,  the  heavy 
steps  of  the  ploughman,  splashing  the  wintry  mould. " 

His  tales,  like  his  verses,  are  coloured  by  myth  and  folk- 
lore, mysticism  and  magic.  All  the  stories  in  The  Secret 
Rose  and  The  Celtic  Twilight  hinge  their  interest  upon  some- 
thing outside  mundane  experiences.  INIany  are  little  more 
than  simple  records  of  tales  he  has  been  told  by  the  country 
folk  in  the  more  remote  districts  of  Ireland.  "  I  have  \vritten 
down  accurately  and  candidly,"  he  says,  in  the  preface  to 
T'hc  Celtic  Tzvilight,  "  as  much  as  I  have  heard  and  seen  and, 
except  by  way  of  commentar\%  nothing  that  I  have  merely 
imagined.  I  have  been  at  no  pains  to  separate  my  own  be- 
liefs from  those  of  the  peasantry,  but  have  rather  let  my  men 
and  women,  ghouls  and  faeries,  go  their  way  unoffended  or 
defended  by  any  argument  of  mine.  The  things  a  man  has 
heard  and  seen  are  threads  of  life,  and  if  he  pulled  them  care- 
fully from  the  confused  distaff  of  memory,  any  who  will  can 
weave  them  into  whatever  garment  of  belief  please  them 
best."  The  garment  of  belief  which  the  poet  has  woven 
about  these  old  tales  is  one  of  the  most  successful  expressions 
of  the  literary  renaissance  of  the  Nineties. 

Anglo-Saxons  are  not  usually  interested  in  a  peasant's 
vague  experiences  in  the  twilight  margin  of  the  West,  but 
they  are  concerned  as  to  the  nature  of  such  experiences. 
They  appreciate  the  unreal  in  the  dullest  ghost  story.  They 
recognise  the  thrill  in  the  shallowest  yarn  of  the  ghost-seer, 
even  though  the  cause  be  no  more  mysterious  than  the  desire 
of  a  domestic  animal  for  human  society,  or  some  white- 
smocked  and  bibulous  peasant  mistaking  the  churchyard 
for  the  king's  highway.  But  to  hear  of  the  doings  of  Celtic 
peasants  in  the  language  of  W.  B.  Yeats  is  to  hear  sometliing 
that  interests  beyond  the  limits  of  a  mere  tale.  Some  of  liis 
stories  deal  franldy  with  the  mysterious  as  it  appeals  to  the 
devotee  of  magic,  and  some  of  them  have  an  imaginative 
atmosphere  recalling  Edgar  Allan  Poe.     Such  are  the  stories 


156  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

of  Michael  Robartes  in  The  Secret  Rose  and  The  Tables  of  the 
Laiv.  In  the  plays,  also,  similar  themes  recur,  expressed  in 
the  drama's  convention  of  conflict  between  experience  and 
idea.  Here  Yeats  is  more  akin  to  Maeterlinck,  although 
there  is  always  that  national  note  which  is  nowhere  apparent 
in  the  work  of  the  Belgian  symbolist.  Pelleas  and  Melisande 
belongs  to  no  country  and  all  countries,  but  The  Countess 
Kathleen  belongs  first  to  Ireland — and  then  to  humanity. 


I 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE   MINOR   POET 


TIIE  term  "  minor  poet  "  is  inexact  at  best,  but  dur 
ing  the  Eighteen  Nineties  it  was  used  very  widely, 
and  a  httle  unnecessarily,  to  distinguish  the  younger 
generation  of  poets  from  the  generation  still  represented  by 
Tennyson,  Swinburne,  William  Morris,  George  Meredith, 
and  from  among  whom  Robert  Browning  and  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  were  but  lately  removed.  The  distinction,  like  the 
term  "decadent,"  began  as  a  disparagement  and,  despite 
well-meaning  protests,  it  lived  on  with  a  difference,  Richard 
Le  Gallienne  lectured  on  "The  Minor  Poet,"  proving  him 
of  importance ;  and  many  critics  were  of  the  same  mind, 
including  William  Archer.  In  the  preface  to  Poets  of  tfie 
Younger  Generation,  a  book  written  in  1899,  but  not  published 
until  1902,  owing  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Boer  War,  he  said  : 
"Criticism  has  made  great  play  with  the  supercilious  catch- 
word '  minor  poet. '  No  one  denies,  of  course,  that  there  are 
greater  and  lesser  lights  in  the  firmament  of  song  ;  but  I  do 
most  strenuously  deny  that  the  lesser  lights,  if  they  be  stars 
at  all  and  not  mere  factitious  fireworks,  deserve  to  be 
spoken  of  with  contempt.  Now  a  shade  of  contempt  has 
certainly  attached  of  late  years  to  the  term  'minor  poet,' 
which  has  given  it  a  depressing  and  sterilising  effect." 

Zeal  to  stigmatise  a  calumny  has  here  led  to  over- statement 
of  its  effect.  The  very  book  in  which  the  above  words 
appear,  with  its  excellent  review  of  the  work  of  thirty-three 
poets,  disproves  at  least  any  suggestion  of  sterilising  results  ; 
and,  though  the  survey  is  both  comprehensive  and  catholic, 
one  might  add  without  much  fear  of  cavil  the  names  of 
another  twelve  poets  or  more  to  William  Archer's  hierarchy. 
The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  poets  so  labelled  were 

157 


158  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

indiffcTcut  to  the  term  ;  but  less  discerning  members  of  the 
reading  public  may  have  suffered  by  allowing  it  to  prejudice 
them  against  new  poetry  which  was  certainly  in  the  tradition 
of  the  great  British  bards.  Indeed,  it  is  not  easy  to  discover 
another  decade  in  which  Enghsh  literature  possessed  so 
numerous  and  so  meritorious  a  body  of  young  poets.  There 
were  splendid  outbursts  of  song  in  the  Elizabethan  and 
Caroline  epochs,  and  another  in  the  early  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  when  such  poetic  planets  as  Wordsworth, 
BjTon,  Coleridge,  Keats  and  Shelley  swam  into  human  ken, 
but  I  know  of  no  other  decade  with  such  a  variety  and  ebulli- 
ence of  song  as  that  under  re\dew.  How  much  of  it  will  sur- 
vive the  test  of  the  passing  years  no  critical  judgment  can 
say  ;  nor  is  that  our  concern.  The  future  ^vill  have  its  own 
tastes  and  its  own  criteria.  It  is  our  business  to  recognise 
that,  according  to  existing  standards  and  modern  predilec- 
tions, the  Nineties  were  prodigal  of  poets  and  distinguished 
in  poems. 

Already  several  of  the  so-called  minor  poets  of  the  time 
have  won  something  like  the  indisputableness  of  classics. 
Every  survey  of  recent  poetry  takes  willing  and  serious 
account  of  Francis  Thompson,  Ernest  Dowson,  Lionel  John- 
son and  John  Davidson  ;  and  for  greater  reasons  than  that 
these  poets  are  no  longer  living.  Unhesitating  also  is  the 
recognition  of  William  Watson,  Alice  Meynell,  A.  E.  Hous- 
man,  Henry  Newbolt  and  W.  B.  Yeats.  There  may  be  some 
who  would  still  withhold  the  bays  from  Rudyard  Kipling, 
as  there  are  others  who  deal  niggardly  justice  to  Stephen 
Phillips,  whose  poetic  achievement  is  higher  than  the  valua- 
tion of  the  moment,  if  lower  than  that  of  the  time  when  he 
gave  us  Christ  in  Hades,  Marpessa,  and  Paolo  and  France  sea  : 
poems  surely  destined  to  outlive  detraction  and  neglect. 

But  the  natural  acceptance  of  such  poets  only  touches  the 
fringe  of  \he  fin  dc  Steele  fabric  of  song.  The  second  decade 
of  the  new  century  sustains  a  lively  interest  in  many  poets 
who  might  wtH  have  been  considered  local  to  the  last  de- 
cade of  the  old.  Some  of  them,  though  lacking  nothing  in 
individuality,  sing  with  an  accent  so  much  in  tune  with  the 


THE  MINOR  POET  159 

"  divine  average  "  of  culture  and  experience  that  some  sort 
of  permanence  is  assured  to  their  work  in  special  fanes  of 
poesy,  if  not  in  the  broader  avenues  of  popular  acceptance. 
Among  such  poets  may  be  named  Laurence  Binyon,  H.  C. 
Beeehing,  F.  B.  Money-Coutts,  E,  Nesbit,  Laurence  Hous- 
man,  Herbert  Trench,  Margaret  L.  Woods,  '"  Michael  Field," 
Sturge  Moore,  Charles  Dalmon,  Selwyn  Image,  Dolhe  Rad- 
ford, Ernest  Radford,  Norman  Gale,  George  Santayana  and 
Rosamund  Marriott-AVatson.  And  finally  there  remain 
those  poets  who  give  expression  to  moods  more  attuned  to 
end-of-the-century  emotions,  but  who  ^\dll  command  a  select 
group  of  admirers  in  most  periods.  In  this  class  are  Arthur 
Symons,  Ricliard  Le  Gallienne,  John  Gray,  Lord  Alfred 
Douglas,  Theodore  Wratislaw  and  Olive  Custance. 

In  spite,  however,  of  what  has  been  said,  the  term  "minor  " 
applied  to  poetry  came  to  be  something  more  than  a  formal 
expression  of  contempt.  The  contempt  it  expressed  was  as- 
sociated with  the  prevailing,  though  half-amused,  antagonism 
of  the  middle  classes  towards  the  decadent  movement  in  art 
and  life.  CalUng  the  new  poetry  "  minor  "  was,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  literary  criticism,  hitting  below  the  belt,  for 
the  term  really  conveyed  a  moral  meaning  beneath  a  literary 
demonstration  of  force.  Opposition  to  the  younger  poets 
may  at  times  have  taken  the  form  of  genuine  literary 
criticism,  but  the  voice  of  disapproval  at  its  loudest  lay  in 
ethics  rather  than  letters.  Owen  Seaman  made  exquisite 
fun  of  the  younger  generation  of  poets,  particularly  of 

"  A  precious  few,  the  heirs  of  utter  godlihead, 
^^^lo  wear  the  yellow  flower  of  blameless  bodlihead  !  " 

in  The  Battle  of  the  Bays,  and  in  a  satirical  poem,  "  To  a  Boy- 
Poet  of  the  Decadence,"  he  indicates  precisely  the  type  of 
poet  who  came  to  be  regarded  as  minor,  and  the  sort  of 
objection  he  aroused  : 

' '  The  erotic  affairs  that  you  fiddle  aloud 
Are  as  vulgar  as  coin  of  the  mint  ; 
And  you  merely  distinguish  yourself  from  the  crowd 
By  the  fact  that  you  put  'em  in  print. 


160  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

For  your  dull  little  vices  we  don't  care  a  fig, 

It  is  this  that  we  deeply  deplore  : 
You  were  cast  for  a  common  or  usual  pig, 

But  you  play  the  invincible  bore." 

Here  there  are  direct  inferences  of  erotic  tendencies  in  the 
younger  poets,  as  though  such  things  were  so  unusual  in 
youthful  verse  as  to  be  startling,  instead  of  being  recognised 
as  characteristics  of  all  adolescent  poetry.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  "  erotic  affairs  "  may  or  may  not  be  vulgar  or  dull.  In 
the  hands  of  a  Baudelaire  or  a  Gautier,  a  Swinburne  or  a 
Rossetti,  they  may  offend — but  not  necessarily  by  vulgarity 
or  dullness.  Neither  were  the  best  of  the  minor  poets  vulgar 
or  dull.  Their  eroticism  may  have  been  irritating,  disturb- 
ing, offensive  or  disgusting,  but  it  was  often  unique,  and 
always  sufficiently  juvenescent  and  impudent  to  be  bright. 
But  the  younger  poets  did  not  all  err  on  the  side  of  eroticism, 
and  some  of  those  who  had  other  enthusiasms  were  ready 
enough  to  criticise  and  repudiate  their  fellows  in  song. 
Richard  Le  Gallienne,  who,  himself,  was  usually,  and  un- 
justly, classed  with  the  degenerates,  showed  small  sympathy 
Avith  that  type  in  "The  Decadent  to  his  Soul."  In  the 
course  of  this  poem  he  defines  very  clearly  the  attitude 
adopted  by  at  least  one  poet  of  the  time  towards  what  was 
conventionally  decadent  : 

"  Then  from  that  day,  he  used  his  soul 
As  bitters  to  the  over  dulcet  sins. 
As  olives  to  the  fatness  of  the  feast — 
She  made  those  dear  heart-breaking  ecstasies 
Of  minor  chords  amid  the  Phrygian  flutes. 
She  sauced  his  sins  with  splendid  memories. 
Starry  regrets  and  infinite  hopes  and  fears  ; 
His  holy  youth  and  his  first  love 
Made  pearly  background  to  strange-coloured  vice." 

And  Lionel  Johnson,  who  was  neither  decadent  nor  minor, 
contributed  a  prose  satire  on  the  same  subject  to  the  first 
number  of  Tlie  Pageant.  It  is  called  "  Incurable,"  and  deals 
rather  heavily  with  that  phase  of  youthful  introspection 
which  tends  to  l)rood  on  love  and  suicide.     But  his  decadent 


THE  MINOR  POET  161 

poet  is  better  represented  by  examples  of  the  work  attributed 
to  him.  Here  is  a  faithful  imitation  of  the  minor  mode  with 
satire  so  well  concealed  that,  in  the  Nineties,  it  might  easily 
have  passed  for  the  real  thing  : 

"  Sometimes,  in  very  joy  of  shame. 
Our  flesh  becomes  one  Hving  flame  : 
And  she  and  I 
Are  no  more  separate,  but  the  same. 

Ardour  and  agony  unite  ; 

Desire,  delirium,  delight : 

And  I  and  she 

Faint  in  the  fierce  and  fevered  night. 

Her  body  music  is  :  and  ah  ! 
The  accords  of  lute  and  viola. 
When  she  and  I 
Play  on  live  limbs  love's  opera. '- 

There  were  poets,  I  say,  who  might  well  have  been  repre- 
sented by  the  above  parody.  Arthur  Symons  (in  his  earlier 
phase  too  often  a  Restoration  poet  rnalgre  lui)  played  the 
part  of  minor  poet  of  the  minute  with  something  like 
desperation : 

"  Her  cheeks  are  hot,  her  cheeks  are  white  ; 
The  white  girl  hardly  breathes  to-night. 
So  faint  the  pulses  come  and  go. 
That  waken  to  a  smouldering  glow 
The  morbid  faintness  of  her  white. 

What  drowsing  heats  of  sense,  desire 
Longing  and  languorous,  the  fire 

Of  what  white  ashes,  subtly  mesh 

The  fascinations  of  her  flesh 
Into  a  breathing  web  of  fire  ? 

Only  her  eyes,  only  her  mouth. 
Live,  in  the  agony  of  drouth, 

Athirst  for  that  which  may  not  be  : 

The  desert  of  virginity 
Aches  in  the  hotness  of  her  mouth. -' 

And  among  all  his  earlier  poems  you  can  find  innumerable 
manifestations  of  the  decadent  reversion  to  artificiality,  as 
in  the  lines : 


162  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

'•  Divinely  rosy  rogued,  your  face 

Smiles,  with  its  painted  little  mouth, 
Half  tearfully,  a  quaint  grimace  ; 

The  charm  and  pathos  of  your  youth 
Mock  the  mock  roses  of  your  face." 

Such  variations  upon  love  were  by  no  means  new  to  poetry 
even  in  this  country.  Swinburne  and  Rossetti  had  been 
rountlly  trounced  by  Robert  Buchanan  lor  venturing  as  fai* 
but  no  farther,  and  the  minor  poets  of  the  Nineties  suffered 
similar  attacks  from  their  own  outraged  contemporaries. 
Generally  speaking,  this  erotic  verse  lacked  the  magic  of  fine 
poetry,  and  to  that  extent  it  was  minor  or,  rather,  not  poetry 
at  all.  It  was  verse,  and  often,  let  it  be  admitted,  very  good 
verse,  but  only  in  the  work  of  Ernest  Dowson  did  it  possess 
the  high-wrought  intensit}'  and  indefinable  glamour  of  poetry. 

The  veritable  minor  note  of  the  poetry  of  these  years  was 
not,  strangely  enough,  that  sought  out  for  denunciation  and 
satire  by  the  bourgeoisie.  The  eroticism  wliich  became  so 
prevalent  in  the  verse  of  the  younger  poets  was  minor  because 
it  was  little  more  than  a  pose  ;  not  because  it  was  erotic.  It 
was  minor  because  it  was  the  swan  song  of  the  Fleshly  School 
of  the  Seventies  and  Eighties.  It  did  not  ring  true  :  for  one 
reason  because  it  was  an  affectation,  and  for  another  because 
it  was  perhaps  a  little  too  much  like  the  life  the  decadents 
were  trying  to  live.  Only  a  respectable  person,  like  Swin- 
burne, could  write  a  really  profound  decadent  love  poem. 

Where  the  minor  poets  were  both  minor  and  poets  was  in 
that  curious  lisping  note  which  many  of  them  managed  to 
introduce  into  their  poems.  This  was  a  new  note  in  poetry, 
corresponding  with  the  minor  key  in  music.  It  was  not  polish 
or  style,  nor  metrical,  nor  alliterative  trick  or  experiment. 
Neither  was  it  entirely  that  fashionable  sensitiveness, 
which,  in  its  ultimate  search  for  unknown,  unexperienced 
reality,  often  resulted  in  a  sterile  perversity.  It  approxi- 
mated more  to  that  ultra-refinement  of  feeling,  that 
fastidiousness  of  thought  which,  in  its  over-nice  concern  for 
fine  shades  and  precious  meanings,  becomes  bleak  and  cheap. 
There  was  an  unusual  femininity  about  it ;  not  the  femininity 


THE  MINOR  POET  163 

of  women,  nor  yet  the  feminine  primness  of  men  ;  it  was  more 
a  mingling  of  what  is  effeminate  in  both  sexes.  This  was  tiie 
genuine  minor  note,  and  it  was  abnormal — a  form  of  herma- 
phroditism. But  it  has  left  no  single  poem  as  a  monument 
to  itself.  It  was  never  so  near  corporeality  as  that.  It  was 
a  passing  mood  which  gave  the  poetry  of  the  hour  a  hothouse 
fragrance  ;  a  perfume  faint  yet  unmistakable  and  strange. 
And  now,  as  then,  it  lives  only  in  stray  ' '  gillyflowers  of 
speech,"  recording,  perchance,  "a  bruised  daffodil  of  last 
night's  sin,"  to  borrow  phrases  from  the  early  poems  of 
Richard  Le  Gallienne,  who  affected  these  mincing  measures 
as  thoroughly  as  he  has  since  followed  a  more  virile  muse. 

Again,  when  the  minor  poet  was  most  minor,  he  always 
contrived  to  clothe  his  verse  in  gracious  language  which  had 
full  power  to  charm  by  its  ingenuity  and  beauty.  If  the  minor 
mode  forbade  its  devotees  to  trespass  far  beyond  the  borders 
of  fancy ;  if  it  prevented  prettiness  becoming  beauty,  we 
need  not  complain.  Fancy  and  Prettiness  never  sought  to 
dethrone  Imagination  and  Beauty,  but  to  support  and  serve 
them  like  good  courtiers,  and  so  the  minor  poets  of  the 
Nineties  served  Art  and  Life. 

Yet  so  myopic  was  the  literary  vision  that  ephemeral 
verses  were  classed  as  minor  with  the  strong  and  normal 
lyricism  of  WilUam  Watson's  : 

"  Let  me  go  forth,  and  share 

The  overflowing  Sun 
With  one  wise  friend,  or  one 
Better  than  wise,  being  fair. 
Where  the  peewit  wheels  and  dips 

On  heights  of  bracken  and  Ung, 
And  Earth,  unto  her  finger  tips. 

Tingles  with  the  Spring.'- 

Or  with  the  wistful  beauty  of  W.  B.  Yeats' 

•'  When  you  are  old  and  grey  and  full  of  sleep 
And  nodding  by  the  fire,  take  down  this  book. 
And  slowly  read,  and  dream  of  the  soft  look 
Your  eyes  had  once,  and  of  their  shadows  deep  ; 


I 


164  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

How  many  loved  your  moments  of  glad  grace. 
And  loved  j'our  beauty  with  love  false  and  true  ; 
But  one  man  loved  the  pilgrim  soul  in  you, 

And  loved  the  sorrows  of  your  changing  face. 

And  bending  down  beside  the  glowing  bars, 
Murmur,  a  little  sadly,  how  love  fled 
And  paced  upon  the  mountains  overhead. 

And  hid  liis  face  amid  a  crowd  of  stars."- 

Or  Richard  Le  Gallienne's  beautiful  lines  : 

"  She's  somewhere  in  the  sunlight  strong. 
Her  tears  are  in  the  falling  rain, 
She  calls  me  in  the  wind's  soft  song, 
And  with  the  flowers  she  comes  again.  "- 

Or  with  some  such  happy  song  as  Norman  Gale's 

"  All  the  lanes  are  lyric 
All  the  bushes  sing. 
You  are  at  your  kissing. 
Spring  !  '-' 

Or  the  more  tragic  theme  of  Francis  Money-Coutts  : 

"  Oft  in  the  lapses  of  the  night. 

When  dead  things  live  and  live  things  die, 
I  touch  you  with  a  wild  affright 

Lest  you  have  ceased  in  sleep  to  sigh." 

And  later  even  with  Stephen  Phillips'  Christ  in  Hades  ; 

"  It  is  the  time  of  tender,  opening  things. 
Above  my  head  the  fields  murmur  and  wave. 
And  breezes  are  just  moving  the  clear  heat. 
O  the  mid-noon  is  trembling  on  the  com. 
On  cattle  calm,  and  trees  in  perfect  sleep. 
And  hast  thou  empty  come  ?     Hast  thou  not  brought 
Even  a  blossom  with  the  noise  of  rain 
And  smell  of  earth  about  it,  that  we  all 
Might  gather  round  and  whisper  over  it  ? 
At  one  wet  blossom  all  the  dead  would  feel  !  '-'• 

And  the  higher  and  deeper  simphcity  of  A.  E.  Housman 


:v:S8^' 


Vi 


^^::^%f: 


A.    E.     HOUSMAN 

From  n  Draii'ing  by  M'illiavi  Rothensteiii 


THE  MINOR  POET  165 

•'  With  rue  my  heart  is  laden 
For  golden  friends  I  had. 
For  many  a  rose-lipt  maiden 
And  many  a  lightfoot  lad. 

By  brooks  too  broad  for  leaping 

The  lightfoot  boys  are  laid  ; 
The  rose-lipt  girls  are  sleeping 

In  fields  where  roses  fade.'-' 

All  these  were  classed  as  lesser  poems — and  so  they  are, 
beside  the  best  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Shellej^  Keats  and 
the  best  work  of  those  few  other  high  lords  of  song  ;  but  with 
the  rest  they  may  claim  kin,  and  ever  remain  in  goodly 
company. 


CHAPTER  XTI 

FRANCIS   THOMPSON 

THE  wave  of  Catliolicism  which  swept  over  the  art 
world  of  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century 
reached  its  poetic  fulness  in  the  work  of  PVancis 
Thompson.  Contemporary  ^^^th  him  were  Ernest  Dowson, 
Lionel  Johnson  and  John  Gray,  and,  although  each  was  in- 
spired by  the  same  spiritual  forces  to  reassert  in  song  their 
faith  in  traditional  Clrristianity,  none  of  them  had  his  bigness 
of  vision.  Few  poets,  indeed,  of  any  time,  have  surpassed 
his  technical  skill  or  the  prodigality  of  his  literary  inventive- 
ness ;  but,  beyond  that,  the  spirit  of  the  hour  breathed  into 
his  verse  a  new  avowal  of  mysticism,  and  it  informed  his 
orthodoxy  with  so  sweet  and  beautiful  a  sense  of  life  that 
tliose  who  were  old  in  the  convention  of  Rome  must  have 
marv^elled  at  the  beauty  of  their  inheritance. 

Francis  Thompson,  product  as  he  is  of  the  poetic  impulsion 
of  the  Nineties,  cannot  be  located  there,  as  one  can  locate  so 
many  of  the  poets  of  the  time.  He  is  not  estranged  from 
neighbom-ing  decades,  like  Ernest  Dowson  and  John  Gray, 
by  a  fortuitous  decadence  of  mood,  but  rather  does  he  par- 
take of  the  endless  current  of  the  years  and  of  the  eternal 
normalities.  Those  who  care  to  discover  obvious  resem- 
blances among  poets  have  compared  him,  fittingly  enough, 
with  Crashaw,  Vaughan  and  Herbert,  and  other  seventeenth- 
century  mystical  singers,  and  sometimes  as  though  he  had 
been  influenced  by  them.  Yet  it  is  known  that  he  resembled 
such  poets  before  he  had  made  himself  acquainted  with  their 
works.  Francis  Thompson  is,  of  course,  just  one  more  mani- 
festation of  the  eternal  mystery  of  faith,  and  in  his  greatness 
he  is  of  no  time  and  all  time.  Those  resemblances  with  the 
past  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  average  magnificence  of  his 

i66 


Francis  Tho.mi'.sox  (Lifk  Ma.^k,   1905) 

From  the  Photograph  by  Sherril  Schcl! 


FRANCIS  THOMPSON  167 

genius  and  his  work  than  the  minor  novelties  of  thought  and 
expression  which  may  remind  us  of  his  corporeal  moment. 
To  the  latter  I  nmst  refer,  and  with  more  excuse  than  that 
demanded  by  the  scope  of  this  book,  for  there  is  much  in 
his  life  and  art  which  links  him  with,  without  confining  liim 
to,  his  period. 

The  son  of  a  doctor,  Francis  Thompson  was  born  at  Preston 
on  18th  December  1859.  His  father  and  mother,  and  two 
paternal  uncles,  were  converts  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion ;  both  uncles  were  associated  with  letters,  one  as 
professor  of  English  literature  at  the  Catholic  University, 
Dublin,  and  later  as  sub-editor  of  The  Dublin  Review,  and 
author  of  several  devotional  tracts,  and  the  other  as  the 
author  of  a  volume  of  poems.  Francis  was  educated  in  the 
Catholic  faith,  and  sent  to  Ushaw  College  with  some  idea 
of  ultimate  priesthood  ;  but  that  intention  must  have  been 
a))andoned,  for  at  the  age  of  seventeen  he  was  a  reluctant 
student  of  medicine  at  Owens  College,  Manchester.  Six 
years  were  devoted  to  this  work  when,  repeated  attempts 
to  take  a  degree  proving  abortive,  a  medical  career  was 
abandoned.  He  expressed  no  desire  to  live  by  writing, 
although  he  was  an  ardent  student  of  literature,  with  a 
particular  affection  for  ^Eschylus,  WiUiam  Blake  and  De 
Quincey.  Several  unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  by  him 
to  earn  a  living  in  various  employments,  but  in  1885,  stung 
by  his  father's  reproaches,  Thompson  left  Preston  and  walked 
to  London.  For  three  years  he  lived  unknown,  generally 
in  degrees  of  poverty  and  destitution.  He  was  employed 
variously  and  at  odd  times  ;  once  as  a  bootmaker's  assistant 
in  Leicester  Square,  again  as  a  publisher's  "collector."  In 
1888  he  sent  two  poems,  "The  Passion  of  Mary"  and 
"Dream  Trj^st,"  and  a  prose  essay,  "Paganism  Old  and 
New,"  copied  out  on  ragged  scraps  of  paper,  to  Merry 
England.  This  act  proved  a  turning-point  in  his  career,  for 
the  editor,  Wilfrid  Meynell,  recognising  the  extraordinary 
quality  of  the  work  submitted  to  him,  not  only  published 
it,  but  sought  out  the  author,  who  had  given  the  vague  ad- 
dress of  Charing  Cross  Post  Oilice ;    and,  ha\'ing  found  him. 


168  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETTES 

became  his  lifelong  i'riend  and,  in  course  of  time,  his  literary 
executor  and  the  far-seeing  guardian  of  his  fame. 

So  poor  was  Francis  Tliompson  during  his  early  London 
days  that  even  ^\Titing  materials  were  beyond  his  means, 
and  some  old  half-used  account-books,  given  to  him  by  the 
Leicester  Square  bootmaker,  were  a  windfall,  enabling  him 
to  translate  to  more  enduring  form  something  of  the  richness 
of  his  mind.  But  he  was  not  a  wTiter  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
His  desire  to  harvest  his  dreams  was  intermittent  at  best, 
and,  in  after  years,  friendly  editors  were  at  great  pains  to 
extract  commissioned  work  from  him.  At  the  same  time 
he  did  make  some  attempt  at  publicity,  as  the  sending  of 
manuscripts  to  Mr  Wilfrid  Meynell  would  prove.  The  results 
were  not,  however,  always  so  fortunate,  for  in  the  follo^ving 
year  his  essay  on  "  Shelley  "  was  rejected  by  The  Dublin 
Review.  Nearly  twenty  years  later  the  essay  was  discovered 
among  the  poet's  papers  by  his  literary  executor,  and,  as  we 
know,  The  Dublin  Review  was  enabled  to  make  amends. 
During  his  own  life  Thompson  published  three  volumes  : 
Poems  (1893),  Sister  Songs  (1895)  and  New  Poems  (1897). 
He  contributed  poems  and  reviews  to  several  publications, 
notably  to  The  Academy,  under  the  editorship  of  Lewis  Hind, 
who  was  one  of  the  earliest  to  give  practical  recognition  to 
his  genius. 

It  was  not  easy  to  befriend  such  a  man  as  Francis  Thomp- 
son. For  years  he  had  taken  opium,  which  set  up  a  paralysis 
of  the  social  will  and  made  him  tragically  indifferent  to  the 
most  elementary  amenities  of  life.  His  friends  induced  him, 
especially  when  he  was  too  ill  to  resist  their  kind  offices,  to 
leave  the  estranged  city  ways,  and  thus  there  arc  oases  in  his 
sordid  outer  life — in  hospitals  ;  at  the  house  of  Wilfrid  and 
Alice  Meynell ;  at  Storrington,  in  Sussex,  where  he  ^\Tote 
most  of  the  poems  in  his  hrst  volume  ;  and,  later,  near  the 
Franciscan  monastery  at  Pantasaph,  North  Wales,  where  he 
wrote  the  greater  part  of  those  in  his  last.  After  this  he  did 
little  work  of  first  quality.  His  own  soul,  rather  than  the 
world,  made  fateful  and  fatal  demands  of  him.  This  strange 
being,  with  brain  of  wondrous  imagery  and  cleanest  thoughts, 


I 


A 


FRANCIS  THOMPSON  169 

this  gentle  poetic  genius,  voluntarily,  it  would  seem,  chose 
destitution  and  desolation  as  his  lot— if  one  dare  apply  such 
terms  to  a  being  whose  inner  life  was  so  rich  with  vision. 
But  opium  and  privation  are  exacting  mistresses  and  eventu- 
ally they  wrecked  his  never-too-robust  body.  Unfamiliar 
and  unkempt,  this  wayward  child  of  the  magical  soul,  this 
decadent  Shelley  who  "dabbled  his  fingers  in  the  day- fall," 
preferred  to  haunt  the  Embankment,  the  cavernous  arches 
of  Charing  Cross  and  the  bleak  and  dusty  colonnades  of 
Covent  Garden,  like  any  lonely  and  friendless  human  out- 
cast, until  disease  drove  him  to  take  shelter  in  a  hospital  at 
St  John's  Wood,  where  he  died,  on  13th  November  1907. 

Among  the  many  eloquent  and  whole-hearted  tributes  to 
his  memory,  that  by  Wilfred  Whitten  stands  out  for  its  vivid 
word  portraiture  of  tlic  man  in  his  latter  days.  Mr  Whitten 
first  met  Francis  Tliompson  at  the  office  of  The  Academy, 
Chancery  Lane,  in  1897,  "the  year  in  which,  with  his  Nexv 
Poems,  he  took  farewell  of  poetry  and  began,"  he  says,  "  to 
look  on  life  as  so  much  dead  lift,  so  much  needless  postscript 
to  his  finished  epistle.  Thompson  came  frequently  to  the 
office  to  receive  books  for  review,  and  to  bring  in  his 
'  copy. '  Every  visit  meant  a  talk,  which  was  never  curtailed 
by  Thompson.  This  singer,  who  had  soared  to  themes  too 
dazzling  for  all  but  the  rarest  minds  ;  this  poet  of  the  broken 
wing  and  the  renounced  lyre  had  not  become  moody  or  taci- 
turn. At  his  best  he  was  a  fluent  talker,  who  talked  straight 
from  his  knowledge  and  convictions,  yet  never  for  victory. 
He  weighed  his  words,  and  would  not  hurt  a  controversial 
fly.  On  great  subjects  he  was  slow  or  silent ;  on  trifles  he 
became  grotesquely  tedious.  This  dreamer  seemed  to  be 
surprised  into  a  kind  of  exhilaration  at  finding  himself  in 
contact  with  small  realities.  And  then  the  fountains  of 
memory  would  be  broken  up,  or  some  quaint  corner  of  his 
amour  projjre  would  be  touched.  He  would  explain  nine 
times  what  was  clear,  and  talk  about  snuff  or  indigestion  or 
the  posting  of  a  letter  until  the  room  swam  round  us." 

Following  this  comes  a  picture  of  the  poet  as  he  appeared 
in  his  pilgrimage  through  the  London  streets  :    "A  stranger 


170  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

figure  than  Thompson's  was  not  to  be  seen  in  London. 
Gentle  in  looks,  half-wild  in  externals,  his  face  worn  by  pain 
and  the  fierce  reactions  of  laudanum,  his  hair  and  straggling 
beard  neglected,  he  had  yet  a  distinction  and  an  aloofness  of 
bearing  that  marked  him  in  the  crowd  ;  and  when  he  opened 
his  lips  he  spoke  as  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar.  A  cleaner 
mind,  a  more  naively  courteous  manner,  were  not  to  be  found. 
It  was  impossible  and  unnecessary  to  think  always  of  the 
tragic  side  of  his  life.  He  still  had  to  live  and  work,  in  his 
fashion,  and  his  entries  and  exits  became  our  most  cheerful 
institution.  His  great  brown  cape,  which  he  would  wear  on 
the  hottest  days,  his  disastrous  liat,  and  his  dozen  neglects 
and  makeshifts  were  only  the  insignia  of  our  '  Francis  '  and 
of  the  ripest  literary  talent  on  the  paper.  No  money  (and 
in  his  later  years  Thompson  sulfered  more  from  the  possession 
of  money  than  from  the  lack  of  it)  could  keep  him  in  a  decent 
suit  of  clothes  for  long.  Yet  he  was  never  '  seedy. '  From 
a  newness  too  dazzling  to  last,  and  seldom  achieved  at  that, 
he  passed  at  once  into  a  picturesque  nondescript  garb  that 
was  all  his  own  and  made  him  reseml^le  some  weird  pedkir  or 
packman  in  an  etching  by  Ostade.  This  impression  of  him 
was  helped  by  the  strange  object — his  fish-basket,  we  called 
it — which  he  wore  slung  round  his  shoulders  by  a  strap.  It 
had  occurred  to  him  that  such  a  basket  would  be  a  con- 
venient receptacle  for  the  books  which  he  took  away  lor 
review,  and  he  added  this  touch  to  an  outward  appearance 
which  already  detached  him  from  millions." 

Stranger  or  more  inspired  being  has  never  before  slipped 
through  the  indifferent  metropolitan  throng,  transmuting, 
by  his  indifference  to  earthly  things,  tragic  moments  into 
joyous  conquests. 

Having  mentioned  the  difficulties  of  friendly  intention  to- 
wards such  a  man,  it  is  neccssar}^  to  quote  here  a  more  recent 
tribute  to  Thompson's  earliest  friend,  Wilfrid  Meynell,  con- 
tributed in  a  letter  to  The  Nation  by  Lewis  Hind,  in  reply  to 
a  poem  "To  Francis  Thompson,"  by  WilUam  IL  Davies. 
There  were  lines  in  this  poem,  such  as  "  No  window  kept  a 
light  for  thee,"  and  "  No  pilot  thought  thee  worth  his  pains," 


FRANCIS  THOMPSON  171 

which  might  have  led  the  ill-informed  to  imagine  Thompson 
a  friendless  and  neglected  genius.  The  contrary  is  made 
quite  clear  for  all  time  ; 

"Now  [says  Lewis  Hind]  it  is  a  matter  of  history  that 

there  was  a  man  who,  through  sheer  love  of  great  verse,  and 

tlirough  kindness,  piloted  Francis  Thompson  all  the  years  of 

his  London  hfe  from  the  late  eighties  until  his  death.     That 

man  was  Wilfrid  Meynell.     There  was  a  window  always 

alight  for  the  poet — the  window  of  the  Meynell  home.     And 

if  this  is  not  made  very  clear  in  the  forthcoming  Life  of 

Francis  Thompson,  by  Everard  Meynell,  the  reason  will  be 

the  family  shrinking  from  making  their  good  deeds  known. 

I  speak  from  knowledge.     Long  ago  (it  must  have  been  about 

1889),   on  the  occasion  of  my  first  meeting  with  Wilfrid 

Meynell  (my  initial  call  at  that  hospitable  house,  drawn 

thither  by  xn  essay  from  Mrs  Meynell's  pen  that  made  me 

eager  to  meet  the  author),  Mr  Meynell  asked  me  if  I  had  ever 

heard  of  a  Francis  Thompson  who  had  submitted  to  him  for 

Merry  England  an  astonishing  poem  from  the  vague  address 

of  Charing  Cross  Post  Office.     Later,  he  tracked  the  poet, 

and  from  that  day  until  Thompson's  death  Wilfrid  Meynell 

was  pilot,  friend,  purse,  anything,  everything,  to  the  poet. 

From  the  material  world  Francis  Thompson  wanted  nothing. 

It  did  not  interest  him.    It  did  not  exist  for  him.    His  body, 

that  wretched  structure  ordained  to  house,  as  it  best  might, 

his  ardent  spirit,  he,  shall  I  say,  despised.     Comfort,  a  home, 

provision  for  the  future  were  to  him  unrealities.     His  only 

realities  were  spiritual ;  his  only  adventures  were  in  the  land 

of  visions.     The  Meynell  household  was  his  true  parental 

home,  and  he,  a  child  in  all  worldly  matters,  was  as  incurious 

as  a  child  as  to  the  whence  and  why  of  the  necessaries  of  life. 

For  a  time  I  was  happily  instrumental  in  relieving  my  friend, 

Wilfrid  Meynell,  of  the  financial  burden  of  piloting  a  poet. 

That  was  during  the  days  of  my  editorship  of  The  Academy, 

when  for  three  or  four  years  Thompson  was  our  most  valued 

and  most  difficult  contributor.     I  soon  realised  the  folly  of 

sending  him  a  cheque  in  payment  of  contributions.     Either 


172  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

he  would  never  open  the  letter,  or,  likely  enough,  he  would 
light  his  obstreperous  pipe  with  the  cheque,  apparently  never 
dreaming  that  it  might  be  useful  in  paying  his  landlady. 
No  ;  I  sent  him  no  cheques  after  the  fu-st  month.  A  cheque 
was  despatched  to  his  landlady  each  w^eek  for  board  and 
lodging,  and  a  few  sliilhngs  were  placed  in  the  poet's  hand, 
periodically,  for  pocket  money,  which  he  accepted  with  de- 
tachment, his  flow  of  conversation  (it  was  his  wont  often  to 
talk  about  nothing  at  exasperating  length)  uninterrupted. 
The  Academy  would  never  have  received  his  fine  '  Ode  on  the 
Death  of  Cecil  Rhodes  '  (a  commission  :  completed  in  fifteen 
hours)  had  he  not  been  in  want  that  day  of  pocket  money— 
not  for  collars,  not  for  cabs — for  laudanum. " 

Tragedy  there  was  in  the  life  of  Francis  Thompson,  but 
there  was  nothing  pitiful.  It  was  a  life  too  deep  for  pathos. 
He  was  one  of  those  who  were  marked  by  the  quickening 
spirit  of  the  times  for  test  of  tribulation.  The  search  for 
reality  in  the  Nineties  produced  many  such  who  were  im- 
pelled by  the  unknown  forces  of  the  moment  to  follow  life 
to  the  very  frontier  of  experience.  Consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, as  we  have  seen,  men  were  experimenting  ^dth  life, 
and  it  would  seem  also  as  if  life  were  experimenting  with  men. 
It  was  a  revolution  precipitated  by  the  Time  Spirit.  Francis 
Thompson  represented  the  revolt  against  the  world.  He  did 
not,  as  many  had  done,  defy  tlie  world  ;  he  denied  it,  and, 
by  placing  his  condition  beneath  contempt,  he  conquered  it. 
That,  at  least,  was  the  effect  of  his  curious  life,  and  in  that 
he  was  unique  even  in  a  period  of  spiritual  and  intellectual 
insurrection  and  suffering.  The  probability  that  he  took  to 
poverty  as  he  took  to  opium,  as  a  sedative  for  the  malad}^  of 
spirit,  does  not  invalidate  this  view,  and  the  record  of  his 
pilgrimage  and  his  faith  is  actually  epitomised  in  the  most 
popular  and  most  remarkable  of  his  poems.  The  Hound  of 
Heaven,  a  work  which  well  might  serve  as  a  symbol  of  the 
spiritual  unrest  of  the  whole  nineteenth  century.  But  whilst 
every  thinker  and  dreamer  of  the  fin  de  siecle  decade  was 
seeking  a  fuller  life  through  art,  or  experience,  or  sensation, 


FRANCIS  THOMPSON  173 

or  reform,  or  revolt,  or  possessions,  Francis  Thompson  was 
finding  it  in  the  negation  of  all  these.  Whilst  others  acquired 
for  themselves  treasures  of  one  kind  or  another,  or  sought 
for  themselves  wonders  and  achievements  of  one  kind  or 
another,  he  remained  both  poor  and  unmoved  by  liis  poverty. 
If  mind  ever  was  kingdom  to  man,  Francis  Thompson's  mind 
a  kingdom  was  to  him  ;  nay,  it  was  the  kingdom  of  God. 

In  this  great  lyric  the  mystical  idea  of  God  as  the  Hound 
of  Heaven  eternally  pursuing  the  pilgrims  of  hfe  until  they 
return  to  Him  is  autobiographical  of  a  man  and  an  age. 
What  better  epitome  of  the  mind  of  the  modern  world  could 
be  imagined  than  the  opening  stanza  ? 

-- 1  fled  Him,  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days  ; 
I  fled  Him  down  the  arches  of  the  years  ; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 

Of  my  own  mind  ;  and  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter. 
Up  vistaed  hopes,  I  sped  ; 
And  shot,  precipitated, 
Adown  Titanic  glooms  of  chasmed  fears, 
From  those  strong  Feet  that  followed,  followed  after.'' 

There  we  have  the  whole  desolation  of  man — the  seeker 
who  findeth  not,  for  what  he  seeks  secketh  him  ;  the  hunter 
of  God  hunted  by  God — and  as  the  poem  proceeds  we  see  the 
eternal  malady  of  the  spirit,  now  satiated,  now  insatiable,  in 
the  age-long  quest  for  peace  and  joy  in  things  kno^vn  and 
seen : 

'-  To  all  swift  things  for  swiftness  did  I  sue  ; 
Clung  to  the  whistling  mane  of  every  wind. 
But  whether  they  swept,  smoothly  fleet. 
The  long  savannahs  of  the  blue  ; 
Or  whether.  Thunder-driven, 
^hey  clanged  His  chariot  'thwart  a  heaven 
Plashy  with  flying  lightnings  round  the  spurn  o'  their  feet : — 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade  as  Love  wist  to  pursue. '-- 

Francis  Thompson  took  a  delight  in  simple  things  which 
recalls  Wordsworth's  attitude  and  sometimes  that  poet's 
accent,  particularly  in  the  Unes  called  "Daisy,"  wherein, 


174  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

after  the  manner,  also,  of  the  Nineties,  he  celebrates  his 
meeting  with  Innocence  in  the  person  of  a  young  girl  on  the 
Sussex  hills  near  Storrington  : 

"  She  looked  a  little  wistfully. 

Then  went  her  sunshine  way  : — 
The  sea's  eye  had  a  mist  on  it, 
And  the  leaves  fell  from  the  day. 

She  went  her  unremembeiing  way. 

She  went,  and  left  in  me 
The  pang  of  all  the  partings  gone. 

And  partings  yet  to  be. 

She  left  me  marvelling  why  my  soul 

Was  sad  that  she  was  glad  ; 
At  all  the  sadness  in  the  sweet. 

The  sweetness  in  the  sad." 

Indeed,  it  would  be  easier  to  find  resemblances  between 
Francis  Thompson  and  poets  so  diverse  as  Wordsworth  and 
Shelley  than  between  him  and  the  mystic  poets  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  He  had  the  quietism  of  Wordsworth  and 
the  exalted  sensuousness  of  Shelley,  and  he  had  the  funda- 
mental saintliness  of  both.  A  life  of  sordid  self-inflicted  dis- 
aster could  no  more  affect  the  strength  and  cleanliness  of  his 
spirit  than  a  life  of  passionate  Avilfulness  could  touch  the 
purity  of  the  soul  of  Shelley.  But  there  are  definite  points 
of  divergence  between  Thompson  and  the  two  earlier  poets. 
He  goes  further  with  Shelley  than  with  W^ordsworth : 
Thompson  and  Shelley  were  more  akin.  The  spirituality  of 
Wordsworth  was,  ultimately,  moral ;  that  of  Shelley,  mystic. 
Had  the  spirit  of  Wordsworth  been  reborn  in  1891  it  might 
have  been  rationalistic  and  ethical ;  the  pride  of  Noncon- 
formity. But  the  spirit  of  Shelley  reborn  at  the  same  time 
might  have  been — Francis  Thompson.  Shelley,  it  is  true, 
sought  an  unknown  God  in  materialism,  and  some  of  liis 
prose  might  easily  have  been  inspired  by  that  Secular  Society 
which  post-dated  him  by  half-a-century,  but  his  most 
rationalistic  moment  in  song  has  all  the  passionate  mysticism 
of  William  Blake.     The  paganism  of  Shelley  seems  to  span 


FRANCIS  THOMPSON  175 

the  years  with  majestic  courage  until,  weary  of  the  endless 
show  of  things,  it  joins  forces  with  Thompson  and  Christianity. 

The  modern  poet  knew  and  understood  Shelley  as  few 
have  done.  For  him  no  'bright  but  ineffectual  angel,"  this 
soaring  creatiu-e  of  em*apturcd  song,  but  a  child  with  the 
whole  universe  for  toy-box  ;  "He  dabbles  his  fingers  in  the 
day-fall.  He  is  gold-dusty  with  tumbling  amidst  the  stars. 
He  makes  bright  miscliief  with  the  moon.  The  meteors 
nuzzle  their  noses  in  his  hand.  He  teases  into  growling  the 
kennelled  thunder,  and  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  its  fiery 
chain.  He  dances  in  and  out  of  the  gates  of  heaven  :  its 
floor  is  littered  with  his  broken  fancies.  He  runs  wild  over 
the  fields  of  ether.  He  chases  the  roUing  world.  He  gets 
between  the  feet  of  the  horses  of  the  sun.  He  stands  in  the 
lap  of  patient  Nature,  and  twines  her  loosened  tresses  after 
a  hundred  wilful  fashions,  to  see  how  she  will  look  nicest  in 
his  song."  And  in  this  description  of  Shelley,  Thompson 
goes  far  towards  describing  himself,  but  he  did  not  stand  "  in 
the  lap  of  patient  Nature  "  ;  Francis  Thompson,  childlike 
also,  rested  in  the  lap  of  God. 

Tills  kinship  with  Shelley  in  a  common  Pantheism  is 
reaUsed  more  than  elsewhere  in  Francis  Thompson's  Anthem 
of  Earth,  a  luxuriant  poem  in  which  he  retraces  Avith  depth 
and  beauty,  and  an  added  richness,  the  image  he  had  sum- 
moned to  his  aid  in  the  essay  on  his  kin-poet : 

"  Then  what  wild  Dionysia  I,  young  Bacchanal, 
Danced  in  thy  lap  !     Ah  for  the  gravity  ! 
Then,  O  Earth,  thou  rang'st  beneath  me. 
Rocked  to  Eastward,  rocked  to  Westward, 
Even  with  the  shifted 
Poise  and  footing  of  my  thought  ! 
I  brake  through  thy  doors  of  sunset. 
Ran  before  the  hooves  of  sunrise. 
Shook  thy  matron  tresses  down  in  fancies 
Wild  and  wilful 

As  a  poet's  hand  could  twine  them  ; 
Caught  in  my  fantasy's  crystal  chalice 
The  Bow,  as  its  cataract  of  colours 
Plashed  to  thee  downward  ; 
Then  when  thy  circuit  swung  to  nightward, 


176  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Night  the  abhorrM,  night  was  a  new  dawning, 

Celestial  dawning 

Over  the  ultimate  marges  of  the  soul  ; 

Dusk  grew  turbulent  with  fire  before  me. 

And  like  a  windy  arras  waved  with  dreams. 

Sleep  I  took  not  for  my  bedfellow. 

Who  could  waken 

To  a  revel,  an  inexhaustible 

Wassail  of  orgiac  imageries  ; 

Then  wliile  I  wore  thy  sore  insignia 

In  a  Uttle  joy,  O  Earth,  in  a  little  joy  ; 

Loving  thy  beauty  in  all  creatures  born  of  thee. 

Children,  and  the  sweet-essenced  body  of  women  ; 

Feeling  not  yet  upon  my  neck  thy  foot. 

But  breathing  warm  of  thee  as  infants  breathe 

New  from  their  mother's  morning  bosom. '-- 

Such  earth-love  is  Pagan  rather  than  Christian,  yet  it  was 
not  foreign  to  the  Christianity  of  Francis  Thompson,  whose 
orthodoxy  did  not  curtail  his  worship  of  Life  in  many  of  her 
manifestations — in  the  stars  and  the  winds,  in  the  flowers 
and  children,  and  in  pure  womanhood.  There  was  hardly 
anything  abnormal  about  his  taste,  but  everything  he  wor- 
shipped became  distinguished  and  strange  by  the  wonder- 
maiden  imagery  of  his  genius.  The  foregoing  hnes  are  richly 
diapered  with  luxurious  phrases.  No  other  poet  of  his  time 
possessed  such  jewelled  endowment,  and  few  of  any  other 
time  equal  him  in  this  gift.  Nowhere  in  English  song  are 
there  poems  so  heavily  freighted  with  decoration  of  such 
magnificence  ;  and  no  poems  approaching,  however  remotely, 
their  regal  splendour  have  the  power  of  suggesting  such 
absolute  simplicity.  Sometimes  his  "  wassail  of  orgiac 
imageries  "  becomes  the  light  conceit  of  his  time,  but  never 
for  long.  Francis  Thompson  soared  high  above  literary 
flightiness.  His  very  luxuriance  of  expression  was  austere  ; 
it  was  not  the  young  dchght  of  a  Keats  in  sheer  physical 
beauty  ;  it  was  the  transmutation  of  sense  into  spirit  by  the 
refinement  of  sense  in  \'ision. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


JOHN   DAVIDSON 


THE  Eighteen  Nineties  had  no  more  remarkable  mind 
and  no  more  distinctive  poet  than  John  Davidson. 
From  the  beginning  he  was  both  an  expression  of  and 
a  protest  against  the  decadent  movement,  and  in  his  person- 
ahty  as  well  as  in  his  tragic  end  he  represented  the  struggle 
and  defeat  of  his  day  in  the  cause  of  a  bigger  sense  of  life  and 
a  greater  power  over  personality  and  destiny.  At  the  dawn 
of  the  period  he  had  reached  middle  age,  having  been  born  at 
Barrhead,  Renfrewshire,  on  11th  April  1857.  But  curiously 
enough,  as  in  the  case  of  so  many  of  those  who  gained  dis- 
tinction in  art  during  the  period,  John  Davidson  did  not 
show  any  distinctive  Jin  de  Steele  characteristics  until  he  pro- 
duced his  novel,  Perfervid,  in  1890 ;  and  between  that  time 
and  1899  he  remained  an  artist  in  the  approved  Whistlerian 
sense,  content  in  the  main  to  express  life  in  the  traditional 
artistic  manner,  without  any  overweening  desire  to  preach 
a  particular  doctrine.  With  the  close  of  the  decade  his 
mental  attitude  seems  to  have  undergone  a  revolution, 
which  translated  him  from  an  artist  pm-e  and  simple  into 
a  philosophic  missioner  using  literature  as  a  means  of 
propaganda. 

He  was  the  son  of  Alexander  Davidson,  a  minister  of 
the  Evangelical  Union,  and  Helen,  daughter  of  Alexander 
Crockett  of  Elgin.  His  education  began  at  the  Highlanders' 
Academy,  Greenock,  and  continued  until  he  was  thirteen 
years  of  age,  when  he  was  sent  to  work  in  the  chemical 
laboratory  of  a  sugar  manufacturer  at  Greenock,  and  in  the 
following  year  he  became  an  assistant  to  the  town  analyst. 
In  1872  he  returned  to  the  Highlanders'  Academy  as  a  pupil 
teacher,  and  remained  there  for  fom-  years,  aftenvards 
M  177 


178  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

spending  a  year  at  Edinburgh  University.  In  1877  he  be- 
came a  tutor  at  Alexander's  Charity,  Glasgow,  and  during 
the  next  six  years  he  held  similar  scholastic  posts  at  Perth 
and  Paisley.  During  1884-1885  he  was  a  clerk  in  a  Glasgow 
thread  firm,  but  returned  to  the  scholastic  profession  in  the 
latter  year,  teaching  in  Morrison's  Academy,  Crieff,  and  in  a 
private  school  at  Greenock.  During  these  years  he  devoted 
much  time  to  literarj^  work,  the  drama  claiming  a  consider- 
able amount  of  his  attention,  and  in  1886  his  first  work, 
Bruce :  A  Drama,  was  published  in  Glasgow.  In  1888  he 
published  Smith,  a  Tragic  Farce;  in  1889  An  Unhistorical 
Pastoral,  A  Romantic  Farce  and  Scaramouch  in  Naxos.  All 
of  these  were  issued  in  Scotland  dm-ing  his  period  of  scholastic 
employment,  but  this  he  abandoned  in  the  year  1889,  when 
he  departed  for  London  with  the  object  of  earning  his  living 
as  a  writer. 

Then  began  a  period  of  literary  struggle  mitigated  some- 
what by  the  rewards  of  artistic  recognition.  In  the  midst 
of  much  journalistic  work,  which  included  contributions  to 
Tlie  Glasgow  Herald,  The  Sjjeaker  and  The  Yellow  Book,  he 
produced  poems  and  novels  and  shoit  stories  ;  he  also  trans- 
lated Fran9ois  Coppee's  play,  Pour  la  Couronne,  which  was 
produced  by  Forbes  Robertson  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre 
under  the  title  of  For  the  Crown,  and  Victor  Hugo's  Buy  Bias, 
produced  at  the  Imperial  Theatre  as  A  Qiieen^s  Romance. 

It  was  liis  poetry  which  first  won  for  him  a  place  among 
his  contemporaries.  In  a  Music  Hall  and  Other  Poems  was 
published  in  1891,  and  during  the  decade  he  issued  at  short 
intervals  eight  fm'ther  volumes  of  poetry,  followed  by  two 
others  in  the  new  century.  These  volumes  were  Fleet  Street 
Eclogues  (189a),  Ballads  and  Songs  (1S91-),  Fleet  Street 
Eclogues,  second  series  (1896),  New  Ballads  (1897;,  The  Last 
Ballad  (1899),  Uolidaij  and  Other  Poems  (1906),  and  Fleet 
St:reet  and  Other  Poems  (1909).  In  this  body  of  work  David- 
son is  represented  at  his  highest  as  an  artist,  though  he  him- 
self set  more  store  by  the  remarkable  series  of  "  testaments  " 
and  philosophical  plays  and  poems  which  engaged  his  genius 
duj'ing  his  last  phase.     In  the  period  covered  by  his  poetic 


JOHN  DAVIDSON  179 

activity  he  published  various  prose  works,  such  as  Sentences 
and  Paragraphs  (1893),  an  early  volume  revealing  the  scien- 
tific and  philosophical  interests  of  his  mind,  and  above  all 
his  early  appreciation  of  the  teaching  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche ; 
A  Randoin  Itinerary  (1894),  and  several  novels,  including 
BaiHist  Lake  (1894)  and  The  Wonderful  Mission  of  Earl 
Lavender  (1895),  published  with  Beardsley's  frontispiece 
illustrating  one  of  the  incidents  of  the  book. 

The  books  of  his  last  phase  are  a  designed  attempt  to  co- 
ordinate and  restate  his  ideas  upon  life  and  art.  They  begin 
with  the  first  three  of  his  four  "testaments  "  :  The  Testa- 
ment of  a  Vivisector  (1901),  The  Testament  of  a  Man  Forbid 
(1901),  and  The  Testament  of  an  Empire  Builder  (1902).  He 
brooded  long  and  deeply  over  the  views  expressed  in  these 
works,  which  reveal  a  revolutionism  transcending  all  familiar 
attacks  upon  institutions,  secular  or  religious,  for  the  poet 
lashes  with  high  and  passionate  seriousness  the  tyrannies 
not  of  man,  but  those  also  of  nature  and  of  fate.  Next  in 
order  of  these  philosophical  works  came  The  Theatrocrat :  A 
Tragic  Play  of  Church  and  State  (1905).  Later  he  devised  a 
dramatic  trilogy,  further  to  embody  liis  philosophical  gospel, 
under  the  title  "  God  and  Mammon  "  ;  but  only  two  of  the 
projected  plays  were  written  :  The  Triumph  of  Mammon 
(1907),  and  Mammon  and  his  Message  (1908).  Finally,  he 
concluded  his  message  to  himianity  fittingly  enough  with 
The  Testament  of  John  Davidson  (1908).  His  attitude  to- 
wards these  works  is  made  clear  in  his  prefaces  and  other 
notes,  and  in  the  dedication  to  the  last  volume  he  describes 
the  books  as  "  The  Prologue  to  a  Literatm-e  that  is  to  be,"  a 
Hterature,  he  adds,  "  already  begun  in  my  Testaments  and 
Tragedies." 

Depression  rather  than  disappointment  dogged  the  life  of 
John  Davidson.  It  is  true  that  he  did  not  reach  fortune  by 
his  works,  but  even  he  could  hardly  have  expected  such  a 
reward.  He  did,  however,  and  with  justice  in  the  light  of  so 
much  industry,  expect  to  earn  a  living  by  his  pen,  but  this 
expectation  had  but  meagre  fulfilment.  As  in  the  case  of 
many  other  artists  he  had  to  pot-boil.     Tliis  hurt  him  both 


180  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

in  performance  and  result,  for  regular  income  did  not  spring 
out  of  the  sacrifice.  "Nine-tenths  of  my  time,"  he  wrote, 
on  his  fiftieth  birthday,  "  and  that  which  is  more  precious, 
have  been  wasted  in  the  endeavour  to  earn  a  liveliliood.  In 
a  world  of  my  own  making  I  should  have  been  \vriting  only 
what  should  have  been  ^^Titten."  These  words  were  written 
in  1907,  and  the  year  before  he  had  been  awarded  a  Civil  List 
pension  of  one  hundred  pounds,  but  this  came  too  late,  how- 
ever, to  arouse  hope  in  a  temperament  wliich  long  years  of 
struggle  with  adversity  had  steeped  in  a  settled  gloom.  In 
1908  the  poet  left  London  with  his  family  for  Penzance,  and 
on  23rd  March  1909  he  left  his  home  never  to  return.  Nearly 
six  months  afterwards  liis  body  was  discovered  by  some 
fishermen  in  Mount's  Bay,  and,  in  accordance  with  his  kno\vn 
wishes,  was  bm'ied  at  sea.  Such  a  death  is  not  a  surprising 
end  to  one  who  adopted  or  possessed  Davidson's  attitude 
towards  hfe.  He  resented  the  unknown  and  loathed  all 
forms  of  weakness.  He  could  not  accept  life  as  he  found  it, 
and  his  pliilosophy  reflects  liis  objection  to  circumstance  and 
fate,  actuality  and  condition,  in  a  passionate  claim  for  control 
over  destiny  and  power,  and  over  life  itself.  Tliere  was  no 
reality  for  him  without  omnipotence  ;  he  repudiated  life  on 
any  other  terms.  That  was  at  the  root  of  his  depression,  as 
it  was  the  basis  of  liis  philosophy. 

The  assumption  that  he  took  his  own  life  is  consistent 
with  what  is  known  of  his  temperament  and  his  ideas.  In 
The  Testament  of  John  Davidson,  published  the  year  before 
his  death,  he  anticipates  this  fate  : 

"  None  should  outlive  his  power.  .  .  .  Who  kills 
Himself  subdues  the  conqueror  of  kings  : 
Exempt  from  death  is  he  who  takes  his  life  : 
My  time  has  come." 

And  further  on  in  the  same  poem  he  gives  suicide  a  philo- 
sophic basis  which  has,  perhaps,  more  frankness  than  novelty  ; 

"  By  my  own  will  alone 
The  ethereal  substance,  which  I  am,  attained, 
And  now  by  my  own  sovereign  will,  forgoes, 
Self-consciousness  ;  and  thus  arc  men  supreme  : 


JOHN   DAVIDSON  181 

No  other  living  thing  can  choose  to  die. 

This  franchise  and  this  high  prerogative 

I  show  the  world  : — Men  are  the  Universe 

Aware  at  last,  and  must  not  live  in  fear. 

Slaves  of  the  seasons,  padded,  bolstered  up, 

Clystered  and  drenched  and  dieted  and  drugged  ; 

Or  hateful  victims  of  senility, 

Toothless  and  like  an  infant  checked  and  schooled  ; 

Or  in  the  dungeon  of  a  sick  room  drained 

By  some  tabescent  horror  in  their  prime  ; 

But  when  the  tide  of  life  begins  to  turn. 

Before  the  treason  of  the  ebbing  wave 

Divulges  refuse  and  the  barren  shore. 

Upon  the  very  period  of  the  flood. 

Stand  out  to  sea  and  bend  our  weathered  sail. 

Against  the  sunset,  valiantly  resolved 

To  win  the  heaven  of  eternal  night.'' 

The  poetry  of  John  Davidson  reveals  on  most  pages  a  keen 
sense  of  life  in  its  various  manifestations  struggling  for  power 
of  one  kind  or  another.  His  imagination  is  essentially 
dramatic,  but  his  sense  of  conflict  is  often  philosophic,  his 
artistic  sense  always  showing  a  tendency  to  give  way  to  the 
imp  of  reflection  which,  through  his  imagination,  was  ever 
seeking  to  turn  drama  into  philosophy  and  philosophy  into 
science.  Yet  he  was  not  immune  from  a  certain  whimsi- 
cality, particularly  in  his  early  prose  works,  in  the  fantastic 
novels,  Perfervid,  Earl  Lavender,  and  Baptist  Lake,  and  still 
more  certainly,  with  a  surer  touch  of  genius,  in  his  panto- 
mime Scaramouch  in  Naxos.  In  the  "  Prologue  "  to  this  play, 
spoken  by  Silenus,  Davidson  goes  far  towards  summing  up 
his  own  peculiar  attitude.  The  speaker  alludes  to  a  fondness 
for  pantomimes,  and  proceeds  to  say  ;  "I  don't  know 
whether  I  like  tliis  one  so  well  as  those  which  I  witnessed 
when  I  was  a  boy.  It  is  too  pretentious,  I  think  ;  too 
anxious  to  be  more  than  a  Pantomime — this  play  in  which  I 
am  about  to  perform.  True  Pantomime  is  a  good-natured 
nightmare.  Our  sense  of  humour  is  titillated  and  strummed, 
and  kicked  and  oiled,  and  fustigated  and  stroked,  and  ex- 
alted and  bedevilled,  and,  on  the  whole,  severely  handled 
by  this  self-same  harmless  incubus  ;  and  our  intellects  are 


182  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

scoffed  at.  The  audience,  in  fact,  is,  intellectually,  a  panta- 
loon, on  whom  the  Ilarlequin-pantoniime  has  no  mercy.  It 
is  frivolity  whipping  its  schoolmaster,  common-sense  ;  the 
drama  on  its  apex  ;  art,  unsexed,  and  without  a  conscience  ; 
the  reflection  of  the  world  in  a  green,  knotted  glass.  Now,  I 
talked  to  the  author  and  showed  him  that  there  was  a  certain 
absence  from  his  work  of  this  kind  of  thing  ;  but  he  put  his 
thumbs  in  liis  arm-pits,  and  replied  with  some  disdain, 
'  Which  of  the  various  dramatic  forms  of  the  time  may  one 
conceive  as  hkehest  to  shoot  up  in  the  fabulous  manner 
of  the  beanstalk,  bearing  on  its  branches  things  of  earth 
and  heaven  undreamt  of  in  philosophy  ?  The  sensational 
dramas  ?  Perhaps  from  them  some  new  development  of 
tragic  art ;  but  Pantomime  seems  to  be  of  best  hope.  It 
contains  in  crude  forms,  himiour,  poetry,  and  romance.  It 
is  childhood  of  a  new  poetical  comedy. '  Then  I  saw  where 
he  was  and  said,  '  God  be  with  you, '  and  washed  my  hands 
of  him."  Here  we  have  Davidson,  as  early  as  1888,  con- 
cerned about  something  new  in  art,  something  elastic  enough 
to  contain  a  big  expression  of  modernity,  of  that  modernity 
which  in  the  Eighteen  Nineties,  and  in  John  Davidson  more 
than  in  any  other  British  writer  of  the  time,  was  more  than 
half  reminiscent  of  the  classical  Greek  idea  of  eternal  conflict. 
But  with  Davidson  and  the  modems,  led  philosophically 
by  Nietzsche,  Davidson's  earliest  master,  the  eternal  conflict 
was  not  regarded  with  Greek  resignation.  It  was  looked 
upon  as  a  thing  which  might  be  directed  by  the  ^vill  of  man. 
The  modern  idea  was  to  make  conflict  a  means  of  gro^vth  to- 
wards power  :  the  stone  upon  which  man  might  sharpen  the 
metal  of  his  will  until  he  could  literally  storm  high  heaven 
by  his  own  might.  Such  an  idea,  often  vague  and  chaotic 
enough,  inspired  the  hour,  making  philosophers  of  artists 
and  artists  of  philosophers,  and  seekers  after  a  new  elixir  of 
life  of  all  who  were  sufficiently  alive  to  be  modern.  This 
idea,  more  than  any  other,  informed  the  moods  of  the 
moment  with  restless  curiosity  and  revolt.  It  filled  the 
optimist  Antli  the  conviction  that  he  lived  in  a  glorious 
period  of  transition  which  might  at  any  moment  end  in 


JOHN  DAVIDSON  183 

Utopia,  and  the  pessimist  with  the  equally  romantic  notion 
that  the  times  were  so  mueh  out  of  joint  that  nothing 
short  of  tlieir  evacuation  for  the  past  or  the  future  would 
avail.     As  Davidson  sang  ; 

-'  The  Present  is  a  dungeon  dark 
Of  social  problems.     Break  the  gaol  ! 
Get  out  into  the  splendid  Past 
Or  bid  the  splendid  Future  hail." 

This  resentment  of  the  present  was  always  Davidson's 
weakness  despite  an  intellectual  courage  in  which  he  had 
few  equals  in  his  time. 

He  could  face  with  heroic  fortitude  the  necessity  of  re- 
valuing ideas,  just  as  he  could  face  the  necessity  of  revalu- 
ing his  own  life  by  suicide.  But  he  could  not  face  the  slings 
and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune.  He  never  realised  that 
a  man  and  his  age  were  identical,  or  that  tragedy  was  an 
essential  of  life  to  be  courted  even  by  the  powerful.  ("  Deep 
tragedy,"  said  Napoleon,  "is  the  school  of  great  men.") 
Instead  of  that  he  murmured  against  that  which  thwarted 
and  checked  him,  regretting  the  absence  of  might  to  mould 
the  world  for  his  own  convenience.  That  was  his  contribu- 
tion to  the  decadence.  The  bigness  of  him,  unkno^Mi  to 
himself,  was  the  fact  that  he  did  fight  for  the  integrity  of  his 
own  personality  and  ideas,  and  he  did  accomplish  their  con- 
servation, even  to  rounding  off  his  own  life-work  with  a  final 
"testament."  But  when  one  has  said  all  one  is  forced  to 
admit  that  the  irregularities  and  incongruities  of  his  genius 
were  nothing  less  than  the  expression  and  mark  of  his  time. 

It  is  as  a  poet  that  Davidson  must  ultimately  stand  or 
fall,  although  the  philosophy  he  expressed  in  his  later 
volimies  will  doubtless  attract  far  more  attention  than  that 
which  greeted  its  inception.  At  first  glance  his  poetry  sug- 
gests a  limited  outlook,  and  even  a  limited  technique  ;  but 
on  closer  acquaintance  tliis  view  cannot  be  maintained. 
John  Davidson  is  as  varied  as  he  is  excellent,  and  as  channing 
in  moments  of  light-heartedness  as  he  is  noble  in  his  tragic 
moods.  Time  probably  will  favour  his  ballads,  but  it  will  by 
no  means  neglect  the  magic  poetry  of  his  eclogues,  nor  the 


184  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

grandeur  of  certain  passages  in  his  poetic  dramas.  And  it  is 
not  easy  to  believe  that  the  dehcate  lyricism  of  some  of  his 
shorter  poems  will  ever  pass  out  of  the  favour  of  those  who 
love  great  verse.  Such  a  poem  is  "In  Romney  Marsh," 
finely  balanced  in  phrase  and  image,  and  rising  to  a  magnifi- 
cent climax  of  metaphorical  description  in  the  two  last  verses  : 

•'-  Night  sank  :  like  flakes  of  silver  fire 

The  stars  in  one  great  shower  came  down  ; 
Shrill  blew  the  wind  ;  and  shrill  the  wire 
Rang  out  from  Hythe  to  Romney  town. 

The  darkly  shining  salt  sea  drops 

Streamed  as  the  waves  clashed  on  the  shore  ; 

The  beach,  with  all  its  organ  stops 
Pealing  again,  prolonged  the  roar."- 

Even  in  his  last  volume  of  verse,  when  ideas  rather  than 
imaginative  inventions  crowded  his  mind,  he  proved  in  many 
a  poem  the  invincibility  of  his  lyrical  gift.  The  title-poem 
itself,  "Holiday,"  equals  any  of  his  earlier  lyi-ics,  and  com- 
pares well  with  even  the  best  of  his  ballads.  And  he  has 
wrought  a  solemn  grandeur  into  the  short  crisp  lines  of  the 
impassioned  and  deeply  felt  poem  called  "  The  Last  Song  "  : 

■-'  Death  is  but  a  trance  : 
Life,  but  now  begun  ! 
Welcome  change  and  chance  : 
Though  my  days  are  done. 
Let  the  planets  dance 
Lightly  round  the  sun  ! 
Morn  and  evening  clasp 

Earth  with  loving  hands — 
In  a  ruddy  grasp 

All  the  pleasant  lands  ! 

Now  I  hear  the  deep 

Bourdon  of  the  bee. 
Like  a  sound  asleep 

"Wandering  o'er  the  lea  ; 
While  the  song-birds  keep 
Urging  nature's  plea. 
Hark  !  The  violets  pray 
Swooning  in  the  sun  ! 
Hush  !  tlie  roses  say 

Love  and  death  are  one  !  '- 


JOHN  DAVIDSON  185 

It  does  not  need  a  very  wide  acquaintance  with  Davidson's 
poetry  to  realise  how  he  was  affected  by  the  natural  life  of  his 
native  countryside  and  the  country  places  of  his  residence. 
He  saw  the  phenomena  of  field  and  hedgerow  and  woodland 
with  clear  eye  and  appreciative  exactitude.  But  he  did  not 
immolate  his  personality  at  the  sliiine  of  Nature  after  the 
manner  of  Wordsworth  or  Shelley.  His  appreciation  was  in 
the  main  sensuous  and  aesthetic,  serving  to  supply  the  poet 
with  some  of  the  fanciful  materials  of  his  art,  for  use  in  the 
more  buoyant  moments  of  his  muse. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  his  poems  passages  abound  in 
which  Nature  has  thus  been  made  to  render  the  sort  of 
tribute  Keats  demanded  of  her,  as  for  instance  in  the  follow- 
ing passage  froin  one  of  the  earlier  eclogues  : — 

"  At  early  dawn  through  London  you  must  go 
Until  you  come  where  long  black  hedgerows  grow. 
With  pink  buds  pearled,  with  here  and  there  a  tree. 

And  gates  and  stiles  ;  and  watch  good  country  folk  ; 

And  scent  the  spicy  smoke 
Of  withered  weeds  that  burn  where  gardens  be  ; 
And  in  a  ditch  perhaps  a  primrose  see. 
The  rooks  shall  stalk  the  plough,  larks  mount  the  skiee. 

Blackbirds  and  speckled  thrushes  sing  aloud. 

Hid  in  the  warm  white  cloud 
MantUng  the  thorn,  and  far  away  shall  rise 
The  milky  low  of  cows  and  farmyard  cries. 
From  windy  heavens  the  climbing  sun  shall  shine. 

And  February  greet  you  like  a  maid 

In  russet-cloak  arrayed  ; 
And  you  shall  take  her  for  your  mistress  fine. 
And  pluck  a  crocus  for  her  valentine."- 

This  keen  sense  of  country  sights  and  sounds  reaches  its 
highest  in  "A  Runnable  Stag,"  a  lyric  which  stands  alone 
among  English  poems  for  its  musical  realism  and  its  vividly 
suggested  but  unstated  sentiment : 

"  When  the  pods  went  pop  on  the  broom,  green  broom. 
And  apples  began  to  be  golden -skinned. 
We  harboured  a  stag  in  the  Priory  comb. 

And  we  feathered  his  trail  up-mnd,  up-wind. 
We  feathered  his  trail  up-mnd — 


186  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

A  stag  of  warrant,  a  stag,  a  stag, 
A  runnable  stag,  a  Idugly  crop. 
Brow,  bay  and  tray  and  three  on  top, 
A  stag,  a  runnable  stag." 

The  subject  brings  to  mind  the  callous  stag-hunting 
chapter  in  Richard  Jefferies'  book.  Red  Deer,  but  different 
are  the  sentiments  underlying  poem  and  essay — in  the  former 
human  feeling  colours  realism  \Aith  pity  at  the  stag  harried 
to  death  in  the  sea,  when 

"  Three  hundred  gentlemen,  able  to  ride. 

Three  hundred  horses  as  gallant  and  free. 
Beheld  him  escape  on  the  evening  tide. 
Far  out  till  he  sank  in  the  Severn  Sea, 
Till  he  sank  in  the  depths  of  the  sea — 
The  stag,  the  buoyant  stag,  the  stag 
That  slept  at  last  in  a  jewelled  bed 
Under  the  sheltering  oceans  spread. 
The  stag,  the  runnable  stag." 

Davidson  without  comment  reveals  the  pity  of  it  all,  but 
Richard  Jefferies  is  capable  of  describing  a  similar  incident 
in  the  passionless  terms  of  photography. 

Sympathy  with  pain,  oftener  of  the  spirit  than  of  the  flesh, 
links  John  Davidson  with  the  Humanist  movement  of  his 
time  and  ours,  but  it  does  not  imprison  him  in  a  specific 
category.  Labels  cannot  be  attached  to  liim.  He  was 
not  associated  with  any  coterie  or  organisation.  He  was  as 
strange  to  the  Rhymers'  Club  as  he  was  to  the  Fabian  Society 
or  the  Humanitarian  League,  and  although  circumstances 
brought  him  into  the  Bodley  Head  group  of  writers,  giving 
some  of  his  books  decorations  by  Beardslcy,  and  his  portrait, 
by  Will  Rothenstein,  to  The  Yellow  Book,  the  facts  must  be 
set  down  to  Mr  John  Lane's  sense  of  what  was  new  and  strong 
in  literature  rather  than  to  any  feeling  of  kinship  on  David- 
son's part.  Kinsman  of  modernity  in  the  big  sense,  he  was 
not,  then,  in  the  brotherhood  of  an}-  clique  or  special  group 
of  modernists,  and  although  his  works  were  as  modern  in  the 
smaller  topical  aspect  as  they  are  part  of  a  larger  and  more 


JOHN  DAVIDSON  187 

notable  awakening  of  thought  and  imagination,  they  never 
achieved  even  a  small  measure  of  the  popularity  asually 
accorded  topical  writings.  Davidson's  work,  even  in  what 
may  be  considered  its  most  popular  form,  in  his  great 
ballads,  was  esteemed  by  a  few  rather  than  accepted  by 
many.  It  is  conceivable  that  in  due  time  "The  Ballad 
of  a  Nun,"  "The  Ballad  of  an  Artist's  Wife"  and  "The 
Ballad  of  Hell  "  will  enter  into  the  familiar  poetry  of  the 
nation,  as  they  have  taken  their  places  in  the  realm  of 
good  poetry  recognised  by  the  cultured.  But  that  time 
is  not  yet ;  a  higher  average  of  culture  must  come  aljout 
before  such  verses  could  supplant  "Christmas  Day  in  the 
Workhouse,"  or  even  Rudyard  Kipling's  ballad  of  "The 
Mary  Glocester  "  or  "Gunga  Din." 

Davidson  himself  eventually  rejected  in  some  measure  his 
own  lyric  verse.  He  came  to  look  upon  rhyme  as  a  symptom 
of  decadence,  although  he  knew  that  "  decadence  in  any  art 
is  always  the  manure  and  root  of  a  higher  manifestation  of 
that  art."  He  sought  therefore  to  discover  in  the  art  of 
poetry,  as  he  sought  also  in  life,  a  newer  and  more  apt  means 
of  expression.  This  he  found  in  English  blank  verse.  And 
he  associated  his  discovery  with  the  final  profundity  of  his 
passionately  asserted  vision  of  life  as  matter  seeking  ever 
finer  and  more  effective  manifestations,  "  Matter  says  its 
will  in  poetry  ;  above  all,  in  English  blank  verse,  and  often, 
as  in  the  case  of  Milton,  entirely  against  the  conscious  inten- 
tion of  the  poet."  In  this  verse  form,  "the  subtlest,  most 
powerful,  and  most  various  organ  of  utterance  articulate 
faculty  has  produced,"  he  saw  the  latest  emanation  of  what 
he  calls  the  "  concrete  mystery  Matter,"  created,  "  like  folk, 
or  flowers,  or  cholera,  or  war,  or  lightning,  or  light,"  by  an 
evolutionary  process  involving  all  activities  and  states  of 
consciousness,  until  it  produced  that  powerful  human  race 
which  "  poured  into  England  instinctively  as  into  the  womb 
of  the  future,  and  having  fought  there  together  for  centuries 
.  .  .  "WTestling  together  for  the  master^',  and  producing  in 
the  struggle  the  blended  breed  of  men  we  know  ;  so  tried 
and  welded,  so  tempered  and  damascened,  this  English  race 


188  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

having  thrown  off  the  fetters  of  a  worn-out  creed,  having 
obtained  the  kingdom  of  the  sea  and  begun  to  lay  hands  as 
by  right  on  the  new  world,  burst  out  into  blank  verse  with- 
out premeditation,  and  earth  thrilled  to  its  centre  with  de- 
light that  Matter  had  found  a  voice  at  last."  Poetry  for  him 
was  thus  no  scholarly  accomplishment,  no  mere  decoration 
or  bauble,  but  the  very  instrument  of  thought  and  imagina- 
tion, emotion  and  passion,  the  finely  tempered  weapon  of  a 
nationaUsm  wliich  he  linked  up  ^vith  Nature  and  endowed 
^vith  her  fierceness,  masterj'^  and  power. 

His  sense  of  the  high  mission  of  poetry  found  ample  ex- 
pression in  the  prefaces  and  appendices  of  his  later  books, 
and  in  his  "  testaments."  But  in  earlier  days  he  heard  him- 
self speaking  of  the  meaning  and  object  of  his  own  poetry  in 
"A  Ballad  of  Heaven,"  where  the  musician  announces  the 
completion  of  the  masterpiece  wliich  "  signed  the  sentence 
of  the  sun  "  and  crowned  "  the  great  eternal  age  "  : 

"  The  slow  adagio  begins  ; 

The  winding-sheets  are  ravelled  out 

That  swathe  the  minds  of  men,  the  sins 

That  wrap  their  rotting  souls  about. 

The  dead  are  heralded  along  ; 

With  silver  trumps  and  golden  drums. 
And  flutes  and  oboes,  keen  and  strong. 

My  brave  andante  singing  comes. 

Then  like  a  python's  sumptuous  dress 

The  frame  of  things  is  cast  awa}', 
And  out  of  Time's  obscure  distress. 

The  thundering  scherzo  crashes  Day." 

Davidson's  self-imposed  mission  was  to  thunder  news  of  a 
new  da^\Ti.  He  repudiated  the  past  ("The  insane  past  of 
mankind  is  the  incubus,"  he  said),  and,  whilst  insisting  upon 
the  importance  of  the  present,  he  heralded  the  new  day  to 
come  with  an  ardour  equalled  only  by  the  Futurists  of  Milan, 
who  followed  him,  and  are  his  nearest  intellectual  kin.  Had 
John  Da^^dson  li^  ed  to-dav  he  must  have  hailed  Marinetti 


JOHN  DAVIDSON  189 

brother.     "  Undo  the  past !  "  he  cried,  in  The   Testament 
of  a  Man  Forbid  : 

"  Undo  the  past ! 
The  rainbow  reaches  Asgard  now  no  more  ; 
Olympus  stands  untenanted  ;  the  dead 
Have  their  serene  abode  in  earth  itself. 
Our  womb,  our  nurture  and  our  sepulchre. 
Expel  the  sweet  imaginings,  profound 
Humanities  and  golden  legends,  forms 
Heroic,  beauties,  tripping  shades,  embalmed 
Through  hallowed  ages  in  the  fragrant  hearts 
And  generous  blood  of  men  ;  the  climbing  thoughts 
Whose  roots  ethereal  grope  among  the  stars. 
Whose  passion-flowers  perfume  eternity. 
Weed  out  and  tear,  scatter  and  tread  them  down  ; 
Dismantle  and  dilapidate  high  heaven.  "- 


Being  a  poet,  and  Davidson  never  made  any  other  claim, 
he  would  use  poetry  to  help  undo  the  past,  "  The  statement 
of  the  present  and  the  creation  of  the  future,"  he  said,  "are 
the  very  body  and  soul  of  poetry."  Of  his  later  intentions 
he  declared,  "I  begin  definitely  in  my  Testaments  and 
Tragedies  to  destroy  this  unfit  world  and  make  it  over  again 
in  my  own  image."  He  was  never  weary  of  asserting  the 
novelty  of  his  aim  and  method,  and  although  he  admitted 
that  there  was  no  language  for  what  he  had  to  say,  he  was 
convinced  that  what  he  had  said  was  both  new  in  form 
and  idea.  "It  is  a  new  poetry  I  bring,  a  new  poetry  for 
the  first  time  in  a  thousand  years."  He  called  tliis  new 
poetry  "an  abiding-place  for  man  as  matter-of-fact,"  and 
his  own  purpose  in  writing  it,  "  to  say  that  which  is,  to 
speak  for  the  universe."  And  the  ultimate  ami  of  such  work 
was,  again  in  his  own  words,  "to  change  the  mood  of  the 
world." 

Nor  was  he  less  precise,  nor  less  frank,  in  stating  the  new 
mood  he  would  establish  in  the  place  of  the  old.  In  the  fin 
de  siecle  search  for  reality  few  possessed  his  diligence,  fewer 
his  intellectual  courage.  The  terrible  and  powerful  poem, 
"A  Woman  and  Her  Son,"  recalls  something  of  his  own 


190  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

unrelenting  criticism  of  lil'e  ;   his  own  determination  at  all 
costs  to  face  facts  and  re-value  ideas  : 

"  These  arc  times 
When  all  must  to  the  crucible — no  thought. 
Practice,  or  use,  or  custom  sacro-sanct 
But  shall  be  violable  now." 

Early  association  with  the  ideas  of  Nietzsche  had  directed 
Davidson's  imiate  pessimism  into  channels  of  creative 
inquisitiveness  and  speculation.  He  learnt  more  from 
Nietzsche  than  did  any  other  poet  of  his  time,  but  he  never 
became  a  disciple.  He  learnt  of  that  philosophical  courage 
which  Nietzsche  called  "hardness,"  and  used  it  Nietzsche- 
wise  in  his  continual  questioning  and  re- valuing  of  accepted 
ideas.  He  was  imbued  also  with  the  German  philosopher's 
reverence  for  power.  But  he  did  not  accept  the  Superman 
doctrine.  This  he  repudiated  equally  with  the  Darwinian 
idea  of  sexual  selection  ;  both  stood  condemned  by  him  be- 
cause of  their  anthropomorphism — what  in  fact  Nietzsche 
condemned  in  other  directions  as  being  "human-all-too- 
human."  Against  the  idea  of  evolution  by  sexual  selection, 
with  the  ultimates  man  and  then  superman,  he  set  the  idea 
of  chemical  selection,  Avith  the  ultimate  object  of  complete 
self-consciousness.  Beyond  self-consciousness  he  saw  no- 
thing ;  that  in  liis  view  was  the  highest  possible  achieve- 
ment of  hfe.  The  essence  of  his  teaching  is  based  in  the  idea 
of  Matter  as  the  final  manifestation  of  ether  seeking,  first, 
consciousness,  w  hich  it  has  long  since  attained,  and  next, 
self-consciousness,  which  it  has  attained  more  recently  in 
man.  This  last  form  of  consciousness,  according  to  David- 
son, is  capable  of  the  highest  ecstasy  and  all  knowledge.  He 
denies  the  inconceivability  of  eternity,  the  existence  at  any 
time  of  chaos,  and  the  presence  at  any  time  of  spirit.  All  is 
Matter,  even  the  ether  and  the  lightning  are  forms  of  Matter. 
And  on  this  basis  he  works  out  a  conception  of  sin  as  courage, 
heaven  and  hell  as  "  memories  of  processes  of  evolution 
struggling  into  consciousness,"  and  God  as  ether,  from  which 
man  came  and  to  wliieh  lie  will  retm'ii. 


JOHN  DAVIDSON  191 

In  announcing  this  theory  of  the  universe  he  does  not  ask 
for  scientific  judgment  or  acceptance.  He  bases  his  claim 
for  recognition  on  imaginative  grounds  and  on  the  fact  that 
he  is  a  poet.  "The  world,"  he  wrote,  "is  in  danger  of  a 
new  fanaticism,  of  a  scientific  instead  of  a  religious  tyranny. 
This  is  my  protest.  In  the  course  of  many  ages  the  mind  of 
man  may  be  able  to  grasp  the  world  scientifically  :  in  the 
meantime  we  can  know  it  only  poetically  ;  science  is  still  a 
valley  of  dead  bones  till  imagination  breathes  upon  it."  It 
was  his  desire  as  a  poet  to  fill  the  conceptions  of  science,  the 
world  of  atoms  and  electrons,  of  gases  and  electricity,  of 
ether  and  matter,  with  the  fight  of  imagination,  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  dead  rationalism  of  middle  nineteenth-century 
culture.  "  Art  knows  very  well  that  the  world  comes  to  an 
end  when  it  is  purged  of  Imagination.  Rationafism  was 
only  a  stage  in  the  process.  For  the  old  conception  of  a 
created  Universe,  ^vith  the  fall  of  man,  an  atonement,  and  a 
heaven  and  hell,  the  form  and  substance  of  the  imagination 
of  Christendom,  Rationalism  had  no  substitute.  Science 
was  not  ready,  but  how  can  poetry  wait  ?  Science  is 
synonymous  with  patience  ;  poetry  is  impatience  incarnate. 
If  you  take  away  the  sjnibol  of  the  Universe  in  which,  since 
the  Christian  era  began,  poetry  and  all  great  art  lived  and 
had  their  being,  I,  for  one,  decline  to  continue  the  eviscer- 
ated Life-in-Death  of  Rationalism.  I  devour,  digest,  and 
assimilate  the  Universe  ;  make  for  myself  in  my  Testaments 
and  Tragedies  a  new  fonii  and  substance  of  Imagination  ; 
and  by  poetic  power  certify  the  semi-certitudes  of  science." 

In  the  Eighteen  Nineties  John  Davidson  strove  always  for 
the  utterance  of  such  feefings  and  ideas  as  absorbed  his  mind 
during  his  last  years  ;  but  in  the  earlier  period  he  was  less 
conscious  of  definite  aim,  and  his  best  work  took  the  form 
of  poetry  and  the  place  of  great  poetry.  His  ballads  and 
eclogues,  a  few  of  his  l}Ties  and  passages  in  his  poetic 
tragedies  are  already  graven  on  the  scroll  of  inmiortal  verse. 
His  "  testaments  "  belonged  to  another  realm  as  they  belong 
also  to  another  period.  They  lack  the  old  fine  flavour  of  the 
poetry  of  his  less  purposeful  days,  and  they  hardly  fulfil  his 


192  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

own  promise  of  a  new  poetrj^  They  are  in  the  main  arrested 
poetry.  The  strife  of  the  poet  for  a  new  expression,  a  new 
poetic  \alue,  is  too  evident,  and  you  lay  these  later  works 
down  baffled  and  uncon\'inccd,  but  reverent  before  the 
courage  and  honesty  of  a  mind  valiantly  beating  itself  to 
destruction  against  the  locked  and  barred  door  of  an  un- 
known and  perhaps  non-existent  reaUty. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ENTER G.B.S. 

MOST  of  the  distinguished  personahties  of  the 
Eighteen  Nineties  challenged  somebody  or  some- 
thing. George  Bernard  Shaw  challenged  every- 
body and  everything.  He  began  the  period  as  one  entering 
the  lists,  and  he  has  tilted  more  or  less  successfully  ever 
since.  No  other  man  of  the  time  broke  so  many  lances  as 
he,  and  looking  backwards  one  is  filled  with  amazement  at 
his  prodigality  of  ideas  and  wit,  liis  persistent  audacity  and 
unfailing  cheerfulness.  Yet  these  very  qualities  limited  his 
effectiveness,  for  it  took  even  "the  intellectuals,"  whose 
high  priest  he  became,  twenty  years  to  reahse  that  he  was 
in  earnest  and  a  genius.  G.B.S.  was  Challenge  incarnate — 
a  rampant  note  of  interrogation,  eternally  asldng  us  uncom- 
fortable questions  about  oiu*  most  cherished  habits.  Why, 
for  instance,  we  ate  meat  ?  Why  we  vivisected  animals  ? 
Why  we  owned  property  ?  Why  we  tolerated  such  a  brain- 
less drama — such  unimaginative  art — such  low  wages — 
such  long  hours  of  labom*— such  inconvenient  houses — such 
adulteration — such  dirty  cities — such  illogical  morals — such 
dead  rehgions — in  short,  such  a  chaotic  civilisation  ?  And 
he  did  not  wait  for  us  to  answer  his  imimnerable  questions  ; 
he  answered  them  hmiself,  or  provoking  a  defence  by 
a  process  of  irritation,  he  smashed  our  replies  with  the 
nicest  of  dialectical  art ;  tempting  us  in  the  pauses  of  our 
bewilderment  v^ith  a  new  vision  of  Ufe. 

In  the  year  1890  Bernard  Shaw  was  hardly  a  name  to 
those  who  were  outside  of  convinced  SociaHst  and  revolu- 
tionary circles,  although  his  articles  on  music,  over  the 
pseudonym  Corno  di  Bassetto,  in  The  Star  (1888-1890),  after- 
wards continued  in  I'he  World  from  1890-1894,  made  him 
N  193 


194  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

the  subject  of  discussion  in  musical  circles.  Socialists  knew 
him  as  a  tireless  and  effective  propagandist  of  the  collectiv- 
ism upheld  by  the  Fabian  Society,  of  which  organisation  he 
was  one  of  the  most  able  members,  and  as  the  editor  of  the 
famous  Fabian  Essays  in  Socialism  (1889),  which  contained 
two  essays  by  himself,  one  of  wliich  had  been  delivered 
before  the  Economic  Section  at  the  Bath  Meeting  of  the 
British  Association,  in  the  preceding  year.  He  was  also 
known  in  the  inner  circles  of  Socialism  as  a  persistent  enemy 
of  the  Marxian  theory  of  value,  which  he  attacked  on  every 
possible  occasion.  He  was  introduced  to  a  wider  public  as 
a  result  of  the  first  production  of  Ibsen's  plays  in  I^ondon. 
Rosmersholm,  Ghosts  and  Hedda  Gabler  had  been  performed 
by  the  Stage  Society,  and  the  astonishment  of  the  dramatic 
critics  had  expressed  hopeless  bewilderment  and  surprise 
in  a  venomous  Press  attack.  The  year  before  Shaw  had 
lectured  upon  Henrik  Ibsen  before  the  Fabian  Society  at  the 
St  James'  Restaurant,  and  this  lecture,  re\\Titten  in  the  form 
of  a  reply  to  the  critics,  was  produced  as  a  book  in  1891, 
under  the  title  of  The  Quintessence  of  Ibsenism.  And  in  1892 
he  followed  up  this  defence  of  the  modern  drama  with  a  play 
of  liis  own,  Widowers''  Houses,  which  was  produced  by 
Mr  J.  T.  Grein  at  the  Royalty  Theatre  and  published  in  book 
form  during  the  same  year. 

Between  1879  and  1883  Bernard  Shaw  began  his  literary 
career  by  wTiting  five  novels.  The  results  were  not  en- 
couraging from  the  publishing  side,  four  only,  after  many 
vicissitudes,  achieving  print,  and  one  only,  Cashel  Byron's 
Profession,  receiving  anything  approaching  recognition  from 
Press  or  public.  So,  checked  but  undismayed,  he  turned, 
like  more  than  one  unsuccessful  novelist,  to  the  sister  art  of 
drama.  The  rest  of  the  decade  was  devoted  to  laying  the 
foundation  of  that  reputation  which  has  placed  him  in  the 
forefront  of  the  modern  dramatic  movement.  Between  189'2 
and  1896  he  wrote,  besides  Widowers'  Houses : — The  Phil- 
anderer :  A  Topical  Coined y  ;  Mrs  Warren's  Profession : 
A  Play  ;  Arms  and  the  Man  :  A  Comedy  ;  Candida :  A 
Mystery  ;   The  Man  of  Destiny  :   A  Trifle  ;   and  You  Never 


ENTER— G.B.S.  195 

Can  Tell :  A  Comedy.  These  were  afterwards  collected  and 
published  in  1898  in  two  volumes  called  Plays :  Pleasant  and 
Unpleasant,  prefaced  by  one  of  those  essays  which  are  liis 
favourite  mediimi  for  the  interpretation  of  himself  and  his 
ideas  to  a  shy-witted  pubUc.  Three  other  plays,  The  Devil's 
Discijjle,  Ccesar  and  Cleopatra,  and  Captain  Brasshound'' s 
Conversion,  followed,  and  were  published,  in  the  volume 
called  Three  Plays  for  Puritans,  in  1901.  Public  perform- 
ances of  most  of  the  plays  were  given,  but  it  was  not  until 
the  dawn  of  the  new  century  and  the  historic  Vedrenne- 
Barker  repertoire  season  at  the  Court  Theatre  (1904-1907) 
that  the  general  playgoing  public  was  convinced  of  even  the 
entertainment  value  of  these  remarkable  dramas.  But  lack 
of  public  appreciation  sat  lightly  on  the  shoulders  of  Bernard 
Shaw.  Seemingly  possessed  of  exliaustless  energy,  and  quite 
indifferent  to  neglect,  he  went  on  with  his  work,  putting  his 
ideas  and  arguments  into  such  essays  as  the  Impossibilities 
ofAtiarchism  (1893)  ;  The  Perfect  Wagneritc  (1898)  ;  Fabian- 
ism and  the  Empire  (1900)  ;  and  into  the  long  series  of 
dramatic  criticisms  contributed  to  The  Saturday  Review  be- 
tween 1895  and  1898.  Whenever  occasion  offered  he  carried 
his  warfare  into  current  polemics  by  means  of  letters  to  the 
Press,  and  one  of  these,  attacking  Max  Nordau's  Degenera- 
tion, published  in  the  American  Anarchist  paper  Liberty 
(27th  July  1895),  probably  forms  a  record  of  its  kind,  for  it 
fills  practically  the  whole  of  that  issue  of  the  paper,  and  has 
since  been  published  in  a  volume  entitled  The  Sanity  of  Art. 
He  also  associated  himself  with  the  more  typical  literary 
movement  of  the  period  by  contributing  an  essay  "  On  Going 
to  Church  "  to  The  Savoy. 

In  all  this  work  Bernard  Shaw  assumed  the  role  of  critic. 
The  newly  awakened  social  conscience  found  in  him  a  willing 
and  effective  instrument,  and  despite  his  unabashed  and  often 
self-announced  cleverness,  the  intellectual  vice  of  the  time, 
mere  "brilliance,"  critical  or  otherwise,  was  rarely  for  him 
an  end  in  itself,  as  was  the  wit  of  Oscar  Wilde  and  Max 
Beerbolmi.  His  cleverness  subserved  a  creative  end,  an 
end  which  looked  forward  towards  a  new  and  resplendent 


196  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

civilisation.  It  was  the  sharp  edge  of  the  sword  of  purpose. 
He  did  not  scruple  to  enlist  the  forces  of  art  in  his  service, 
and  his  plays,  therefore,  are  invariably  didactic,  though 
relieved  from  dullness  by  abundant  wit,  much  humour  and 
vivid  flashes  of  characterisation.  Such  plays,  for  instance, 
as  Widowers''  Houses  and  Mrs  Warren's  Profession  are  pure 
sociology  in  the  form  of  drama,  or  rather  melodrama,  for 
Shaw  is  the  melodramatist  of  the  intellect.  He  seeks  to  do 
for  the  head  what  Charles  Rcadc  sought  to  do  for  the  heart, 
and  there  is  no  fundamental  difference  between  the  inspira- 
tion at  the  back  of  Widowers'  Houses  and  It's  Never  Too  Late 
to  Mend  :   both  are  dramatised  tracts. 

Art  for  art's  sake  had  come  to  its  logical  conclusion  in  de- 
cadence, and  Bernard  Shaw  joined  issue  with  the  ascendant 
spirit  of  the  times,  whose  more  recent  devotees  have  adopted 
the  expressive  phrase :  art  for  life's  sake.  It  is  probable 
that  the  decadents  meant  much  the  same  thing,  but  they 
saw  life  as  intensive  and  individual,  whereas  the  later  view 
is  uni\  ersal  in  scope.  It  roams  extensively  over  humanity, 
realising  the  collective  soul.  The  decadent  art  idea  stood 
for  individuals,  and  saw  humanity  only  as  a  panoramic  back- 
ground. The  ascendant  view  promotes  the  background  to  a 
front  place  ;  it  sees  life  communally  and  sees  it  whole,  and 
refuses  to  allow  individual  encroachments.  Bernard  Shaw 
upheld  this  vision  of  life,  and  strove  to  square  it  with  his  own 
inborn  and  emphatic  individuality.  He  considered  it  legiti- 
mate to  use  art  to  estabUsh  and  extend  his  ideas.  "  Fine 
art,"  he  said,  "  is  the  subtlest,  the  most  seductive,  the  most 
effective  means  of  moral  propagandism  in  the  world,  except- 
ing only  the  example  of  personal  conduct ;  and  I  waive  even 
this  exception  in  favour  of  the  art  of  the  stage,  because  it 
works  by  exhibiting  examples  of  personal  conduct  made  in- 
telligible and  moving  to  crowds  of  unobservant,  unreflecting 
])eople  to  whom  real  life  means  nothing."  In  the  epistolaiy 
essay  to  Liberty  he  emphasised  and  detailed  his  sense  of  the 
moral  value  of  art,  revealing  his  divergence  from  the  Ruskin- 
Morris  view  of  art  as  joyful  work,  as  well  as  from  the  views 
of  Gautier  and  Baudelaire  : 


ENTER-G.B.S.  197 

"  The  claim  of  art  to  our  respect  must  stand  or  fall  with 
the  vahdity  of  its  pretension  to  cultivate  and  refine  our  senses 
and  faculties  until  seeing,  hearing,  feeling,  smelling  and 
tasting  become  highly  conscious  and  critical  acts  with  us, 
protesting  vehemently  against  ugliness,  noise,  discordant 
speech,  frowsy  clothing  and  foul  air,  and  taking  keen  interest 
and  pleasure  in  beauty,  in  music,  and  in  the  open  air,  besides 
making  us  insist,  as  necessary  for  comfort  and  decency,  on 
clean,  wholesome,  handsome  fabrics  to  wear,  and  utensils  of 
fine  material  and  elegant  workmanship  to  handle.  Further, 
art  should  refine  our  sense  of  character  and  conduct,  of  jus- 
tice and  sympathy,  greatly  heightening  our  self-knowledge, 
self-control,  precision  of  action,  and  considerateness,  and 
making  us  intolerant  of  baseness,  cruelty,  injustice  and 
intellectual  superficiality  or  vulgarity.  The  worthy  artist 
or  craftsman  is  he  who  responds  to  this  cultivation  of  the 
physical  or  moral  senses  by  feeding  them  with  pictures, 
musical  compositions,  pleasant  houses  and  gardens,  good 
clothes  and  fine  implements,  poems,  fictions,  essays  and 
dramas,  which  call  the  heightened  senses  and  ennobled 
faculties  into  pleasurable  activity.  The  greatest  artist 
is  he  who  goes  a  step  beyond  the  demand,  and,  by 
supplying  works  of  a  higher  beauty  and  a  higher  interest 
than  have  yet  been  perceived,  succeeds,  after  a  brief 
struggle  with  its  strangeness,  in  adding  this  fresh  ex- 
tension of  sense  to  the  heritage  of  the  race.  This  is  why 
we  value  art :  this  is  why  we  feel  that  the  iconoclast 
and  the  Puritan  are  attacking  something  made  holier, 
by  solid  usefulness,  than  their  own  theories  of  purity  ; 
this  is  why  art  has  won  the  privileges  of  rehgion ;  so 
that  London  shopkeepers  who  would  fiercely  resent  a 
compulsory  church  rate,  who  do  not  know  '  Yankee  Doodle  ' 
from  'God  save  the  Queen,'  and  who  are  more  interested 
in  the  photograph  of  the  latest  celebrity  than  in  the 
Velasquez  portraits  in  the  National  Gallery,  tamely  allow 
the  London  County  Council  to  spend  their  money  on  bands, 
on  municipal  art  inspectors,  and  on  plaster  casts  from  the 
antique." 


198  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Bernard  Shaw  strove  to  add  to  the  heritage  of  the  race  a 
keener  sense  of  reahty.  He  called  it  "the  sense  of  fact." 
And  it  was  in  pursuit  of  this  idea  that  he  defended  the  art  of 
the  French  Impressionists  and  Richard  Wagner  and  Henrik 
Ibsen.  Much  of  his  humour  is  based  on  the  portrayal  of  the 
incongruity  between  those  who  see  things  clearly  and  those 
who  don't ;  between  the  faculty  of  seeing  life  and  experi- 
encing life  with  frank  individual  conviction,  and  the  habit  of 
seeing  and  living  by  the  proxies  of  convention  and  tradition. 
His  wit  is  designedly  explosive,  but  only  apparently  impudent 
and  irreverent,  for  it  seeks  to  startle  a  moribund  society  out 
of  its  stultifying  habits,  duties  and  ideals.  In  The  Quint- 
essence of  Ihsenisin  he  upholds  realism  against  idealism,  with 
the  plays  of  Ibsen  as  text.  But  his  sense  of  reality  does  not 
take  reason  for  its  basis.  The  basis  of  the  new  realism  is 
the  will.  Reason  takes  the  subsidiary  place  of  defender  of 
the  will,  and  will  and  faith  are  treated  as  one.  Reason  does 
not  indicate  direction  to  the  will,  it  proves  that  wilfulness  is 
right—  after  the  act.  Shaw  says,  in  effect,  do  what  you  want 
to  do  and  then  prove  you  are  right.  It  will  thus  be  seen 
that  anything  in  the  nature  of  an  ideal,  a  formal  duty  or  a 
fixed  habit  must  necessarily  conflict  with  the  realist  attitude, 
"  The  realist  .  .  .  loses  patience  with  ideals  altogether,  and 
sees  in  them  only  something  to  blind  us,  something  to  numb 
us,  something  whereby  instead  of  resisting  death,  we  can 
disarm  it  by  committing  suicide."  He  associates  his  attack 
upon  ideals  with  the  idea  of  stripping  the  mask  from  the  face 
of  reality  which  is  life. 

Rationalism  found  a  convinced  and  subtle  enemy  in  this 
new  master  of  dialectics,  for  those  whose  minds  could  survive 
the  laughter  provoked  by  the  humorous  presentation  of  the 
Shavian  doctrine  realised  quickly  enough,  and,  if  they  were 
rationalists,  tragically  enough,  that  the  moral  and  religious 
system  rationalism  had  expended  so  much  energy  in  attack- 
ing was  really  rationalism  triumphant.  Shaw  announced  that 
civilisation  was  rational  but  wrong.  Yet  in  the  Eighteen 
Nineties  he  had  no  place  for  mysticism  in  his  view  of  life. 
The  rationalists  came  to  grief  by  reasoning  about  something, 


i 


ENTER-G.B.S.  199 

and  Shaw  did  not  tliink  it  possible  to  improve  matters  by 
becoming  a  mystic  and  "reasoning  about  nothing."  Since 
then  he  has  modified  his  view,  but  now  as  then  his  sole  aim 
has  been  the  conquest  of  reality.  This  is  brought  out  no- 
where so  clearly  as  in  the  "  Interlude  "  in  Man  and  Super- 
man, and  in  one  passage,  that  in  which  Don  Juan  explains 
his  ideas  of  heaven  and  hell,  we  have  the  quintessence  of 
Shavianism.  "  Do  you  suppose  heaven  is  like  earth  ?  " 
Don  Juan  asks  Ana ;  "  where  people  persuade  themselves 
that  what  is  done  can  be  undone  by  repentance  ;  that  what 
is  spoken  can  be  unspoken  by  withdrawing  it ;  that  what  is 
true  can  be  annihilated  by  a  general  agreement  to  give  it  the 
lie  ?  No  ;  heaven  is  the  home  of  the  masters  of  reality  : 
that  is  why  I  am  going  thither."  Ana  answers  that  she  has 
had  quite  enough  reality  on  earth  and  that  she  is  going  to 
heaven  for  happiness.  Don  Juan  advises  her  to  remain  in 
hell  for  "  hell  is  the  home  of  the  unreal  and  of  the  seekers 
for  happiness.  It  is  the  only  refuge  from  heaven,  which  is 
.  .  .  the  home  of  the  masters  of  reality,  and  from  earth  which 
is  the  home  of  the  slaves  of  reality."  And  again  he  says  he 
would  enjoy  the  contemplation  of  that  which  interests  him 
above  all  things—"  namely,  Life  ;  the  force  that  ever  strives 
to  attain  gi-eater  power  of  contemplating  itself."  The  end 
of  this  contemplation  is  to  be  the  creation  of  a  brain  capable 
of  wielding  an  imagination  fine  enough  to  help  Life  in  its 
struggle  upward. 

With  such  a  conception  of  life  and  its  purpose  Bernard 
Shaw  entered  the  lists,  advocating  many  causes  which  might 
tend  towards  the  realisation  of  his  idea.  He  managed  to 
combine  a  firm  anti-romantic  attitude  with  convinced 
humanitarian  preferences.  Thus  he  became  vegetarian,  anti- 
vaccinationist,  anti-vivisectionist  and  Socialist.  His  argu- 
ments and  advocacy  were  able,  and  therefore  useful  to  all  of 
these  causes,  but  it  was  as  a  Socialist  that  his  genius  for 
propaganda  displayed  itself  to  best  advantage.  Long  before 
the  outer  public  had  heard  of  him,  innumerable  people  whose 
minds  were  ripening  under  social  and  industrial  discontent 
came   under  the   spell   of    his    eloquence   in   revolutionary 


200  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

club  rooms,  in  Trafalgar  Square  and  Hyde  Park  and  other 
open-air  forums  of  the  people,  and  at  the  meetings  of  the 
Fabian  Society.  It  was  at  the  Fabian  Society  that  he  was 
heard  to  best  advantage,  for  there  he  was  matched  in  debate 
with  some  of  tlie  keenest  intelligences  and  quickest  minds 
in  London. 

To  Socialism,  however,  he  contributed  no  original  thought. 
He  was  in  the  main  content  to  advocate  and  buttress  with 
eloquence  and  dialectic  the  collectivist  opportunism  of  his 
friend,  Sidnc}'^  Webb.  The  constitutional  methods  of  Webb 
and  the  Fabian  Society  have  indeed  seemed  at  times  difficult 
to  square  with  Bernard  Shaw's  written  views  of  what  ought 
to  be  the  true  attitude  of  a  revolutionist.  Particularly  is 
this  obvious  in  such  later  plays  as  Man  and  Superman  and 
Major  Barbara,  where  there  are  expressions  which  it  is  not 
easy  to  construe  othervNdse  than  as  advocacy  of  direct  action 
and  revolt.  Even  in  his  Fabian  utterances  he  has  not  always 
taken  the  orthodox  Fabian  line,  which  is  always  uncom- 
promisingly middle-class,  as,  for  instance,  in  his  insistence 
on  the  complete  acceptance  of  the  idea  of  economic  equality 
as  the  only  basis  of  the  Socialist  state,  and  it  is  conceivable 
that,  if  the  revolutionary  philosophy  of  Shaw's  plays  were 
pushed  to  its  logical  conclusion,  their  author  would  find  him- 
self in  the  ranks  of  those  Socialists  who  believe  less  in  parlia- 
mentary and  legal  processes  of  reform  than  in  active  revolt. 

Bernard  Shaw's  original  contribution  to  the  intellectual 
awakening  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties  was  not  so  much  an  idea 
as  a  new  attitude  of  approaching  all  ideas  and  all  facts.  The 
approach  by  criticism  is  by  no  means  a  novel  method  in  itself, 
but  it  is  always  a  novelty  in  the  stable  mental  atmosphere 
of  English  and,  indeed,  Teutonic  culture.  Anything  in  the 
nature  of  criticism  and  its  correlatives,  satire  and  caricature, 
are  treated  by  most  people  in  this  country  as  mere  irrever- 
ence. Shaw  has  always  been  considered  irreverent,  though 
probably  few  more  earnest  and  essentially  religious  men  ever 
existed.  But  the  cumulative  effect  of  his  wit  has  moved  a 
mountain  range  of  indifference,  and  although  the  majority 
of  those  who  go  to  his  plays  go  to  laugh  and  remain  to  laugh 


ENTER-G.B.S.  201 

(often  beyond  reason),  many  remain  to  laugh  and  pray. 
These  plays  have  had  a  more  immediate  and  more  intelligent 
success  in  Germany,  but  they  have  attracted  little  attention 
in  France.  This  is  not  quite  so  hard  to  explain  as  it  might 
appear  at  first  sight.  In  England  we  could  not  see  the 
seriousness  of  Shaw  because  his  critical  attack  being  local 
hit  us  before  his  humour  could  win  home.  In  Germany  a 
similar  mental  milieu  greeted  him  more  readily  because  his 
irreverence,  apparently  the  outcome  of  criticism  of  British 
institutions  and  morals,  but  really  a  criticism  of  modern 
civilised  morality,  did  not  hit  Germany  so  hard,  and  conse- 
quently his  wit  was  free  to  carry  on  its  subtle  trade  in  phil- 
osophy. But  in  France  Shavianism  was  no  new  thing. 
Criticism  had  been  freer  in  that  country  for  over  a  century 
than  in  any  other  country  in  the  world.  Wit  was  no 
rarity ;  diabolonian  humour  no  uncommon  weapon,  and 
idea-play  no  novelty.  France  in  fact  was  the  birthplace  of 
modernity,  and  the  modernity  of  Shaw  was  outmoded  there 
before  we  began  to  notice  its  existence  here.  Whilst  England 
and  Germany  were  murmuring  delightedly  "brilliant" — • 
"  daring  "— "  clever  " — at  each  successive  Shavian  sally,  the 
land  of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  Baudelaire  and  Zola,  Anatole 
France  and  Brieux,  could  only  say  ;  "  Vieuxjeu  !  " — Queen 
Anne's  dead  I 

Shaw's  success  in  England  has  not  been  in  any  way  national. 
It  is  at  best  a  class  acceptance  and  generally  bourgeois.  The 
mass  of  the  people  know  him  only  as  a  name  frequently 
appearing  in  the  papers,  and  often  enough  in  connection 
with  some  statement  or  idea  which  to  them  seemed  incom- 
prehensible or  freakish.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek,  for 
Bernard  Shaw  is  an  apostle  to  the  Middle  Class,  as,  indeed, 
he  is  a  product  of  that  class.  He  displays  all  its  character- 
istics in  his  personality  and  his  art,  what  arc  called  his 
eccentricities  of  thought  and  expression  being  often  little 
more  than  advertisements  of  his  own  respectability.  Puri- 
tanical, economical,  methodical,  deeply  conscious  of  responsi- 
bility and  a  sound  man  of  affairs,  he  sums  up  in  his  own 
personahty  all  the  virtues  of  the  class  satirised  by  Ibsen 


202  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

in  Tl^e  Pillars  of  Society.  An  examination  of  iiis  most 
"  advanced  "  ideas  urges  the  point ;  for  even  his  dialectic 
is  bourgeois  from  its  nicest  subtleties  to  its  most  outrageous 
explosions.  When  he  shocks  the  middle  classes,  which  he 
does  very  often,  he  shocks  them  with  the  sort  of  squibs 
they  would  let  off  to  shock  themselves  for  fun  ;  and  when  he 
argues  with  them  he  uses  precisely  the  kind  of  argument  they 
use  in  defence  of  the  things  they  already  know  and  like.  As 
a  Socialist  he  invariably  appeals  to  the  bourgeois  instinct  of 
self-interest ;  and  much  of  his  philosophy  is  a  modern  varia- 
tion of  the  bourgeois  ideals  of  self-help  and  self-reliance — 
namely,  self-assertion.  He  tells  the  bourgeoisie  that  they  are, 
politically,  the  neglected  and  abused  class,  and  ad\dses  them 
to  retaliate  upon  their  oppressors  by  adopting  a  Socialism 
broad-based  in  the  Utopian  dream  of  a  nationalised  respect- 
ability. And  when  his  interested,  but  by  no  means  convinced, 
hearers  stumble  over  the  horrible  thought  that  they  may  have 
to  abandon  the  financial  basis  of  their  estate,  Bernard  Shaw 
produces  a  defence  of  money  which  turns  consternation  into 
delight  and  Socialist  philosophy  into  self-interest. 

All  of  which  does  not  alter  the  freshness  of  his  gospel  nor 
the  veritability  of  his  unique  contribution  to  modern  thought. 
As  a  critic  he  has  made  it  possible  for  all  who  desire  to  do  so 
to  look  at  life  in  their  own  way,  and  in  doing  so  to  surround 
their  egoism  with  a  margin  of  sweet  tolerance  ;  he  has  phil- 
osophised common-sense,  and  made  anti-climax  a  popular 
literary,  conversational  and  oratorical  trick  ;  and  he  has 
gone  far  towards  reintroducing  intelligence  to  the  British 
theatre  and  proving  that  in  some  circumstances  an  intelli- 
gent drama  is  a  sound  commercial  proposition.  Above  all 
he  has  demonstrated  the  dramatic  possibilities  of  discussion, 
and  by  so  doing  linked  up  the  literary  drama  with  Platonic 
dialogue,  and,  at  the  same  time,  he  has  left  the  theatre  free 
to  develop  at  the  right  moment  its  natural  emotional  and 
imaginative  tradition. 

If  circumstances  have  forced  Bernard  Shaw  to  give  to  the 
middle  classes  what  was  meant  for  humanity,  it  is  consoling 
to  think  that  his  teaching  is  big  enough  and  good  enough  for 


ENTER -G.B.S.  203 

the  latter.  In  the  essence  of  things  there  is  nothing  in  his 
teaching  or  his  ideas  fundamentally  opposed  to  broad  human 
needs.  Rightly  understood,  Shaw's  gospel  is  universal,  and 
none  the  less  so  because  it  is  eclectic  and  has  been  assimilated 
and  selected  by  one  of  the  most  able  and  distinguished  minds 
our  nation  has  produced  from  the  thought  of  the  most 
powerful  and  original  of  modern  intelligences.  Schopen- 
hauer, Richard  Wagner,  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  Henrik  Ibsen 
and  Samuel  Butler  have  all  contributed  material  to  augment 
that  gospel  of  reality  which  Shaw  has  preached  with  so  much 
original  eloquence  and  wit.  The  Eighteen  Nineties  were 
largely  indifferent  to  the  high  and  bewildering  purpose  of  this 
teaching,  although  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine  an  atmosphere 
better  suited  for  its  development  either  on  the  part  of  its 
creator  or  of  his  possible  followers.  It  was  reserved  for  the 
new  century  to  recognise  Shaw's  great  gifts  by  wide  discus- 
sion and  much  protest,  and  it  is  certain  that  protest  will  die 
down  when  the  ripe  sanity  and  easy  common-sense  of  his 
purpose  is  seen  through  the  satiric  diablerie  of  the  mask  he 
chooses  to  wear. 

No  other  modern  writer  in  this  country  save  Samuel 
Butler,  and  none  in  Europe  save  Tolstoy  and  Ibsen,  have 
looked  at  hfe  so  frankly  as  Bernard  Shaw.  Zola,  generally 
considered  an  arch-realist,  but  really  a  romantic,  was  so 
obsessed  by  the  shibboleth  of  scientific  accumulation  of 
evidence  that  his  vision  is  as  blurred  as  that  of  Herbert 
Spencer  ;  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche  both  looked  at  life 
through  the  distorting  glass  of  theory  ;  Ruskin  and  Carlyle 
saw  only  parts  of  Hfe.  But  Tolstoy  and  Ibsen,  Butler  and 
Shaw  possessed  the  faculty  of  looking  at  life  with  photo- 
graphic vision.  Realists  of  this  type  are  the  outcome  of 
that  impulsion  towards  frankness  which  produced  the  Im- 
pressionists. Manet  and  Degas  are  their  prototypes  in  the 
graphic  arts ;  and  just  as  these  artists  demanded  and  ac- 
cepted with  all  its  consequences  the  full  reality  and  accent 
of  light,  so  the  artist-philosophers,  working  in  the  same 
spirit,  allowed  light  absolute  freedom  in  the  realms  of 
observing  intellect  and  informing  imagination. 


204  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

To  look  at  life  until  you  see  it  clearly  is  Bernard  Shaw's 
avowed  aim.  His  concern  being  with  humanity  and  the 
fine  arts,  he  has  made  it  his  business  to  see  these  manifesta- 
tions of  life  clearly  and  deduce  his  philosophy  from  them 
without  fear  of  what  has  been  said  or  believed  or  experienced. 
And  although  he  now  sets  a  higher  value  on  contemplation, 
in  the  Nineties  he  knew  that  contemplation  was  not  enough 
in  itself.  Writing  of  life,  in  1896,  he  said  :  "  Only  by  inter- 
course with  men  and  women  can  we  learn  anything  about  it. 
This  involves  an  active  life,  not  a  contemplative  one ;  for 
unless  you  do  something  in  the  world,  you  can  have  no  real 
business  to  transact  with  men  ;  and  unless  you  love  and  are 
loved,  you  can  have  no  intimate  relations  with  them.  And 
you  must  transact  business,  wirepull  politics,  discuss  religion, 
giv^e  and  receive  hate,  love  and  friendship,  with  all  sorts  of 
people  before  you  can  acquire  the  sense  of  humanity.  If  you 
are  to  acquire  the  sense  sufficiently  to  be  a  philosopher,  you 
must  do  all  these  things  unconditionally."  Facing  life  in 
suchwise  himself  he  has  hammered  out  his  own  religion  of 
art,  activity  and  contemplation,  and  this  religion  finds  a 
voice  in  all  his  work,  and  is  summed  up  in  many  passages, 
but  in  none  so  intimately  and  so  personally  as  in  a  passage 
in  The  Savoy  essay,  "On  Going  to  Church  "  :  "Any  place 
where  men  dwell,  village  or  city,  is  a  reflection  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  every  single  man.  In  my  consciousness  there  is 
a  market,  a  garden,  a  dwelling,  a  workshop,  a  lovers'  walk — 
above  all,  a  cathedral.  My  appeal  to  the  master-builder  is : 
Mirror  this  cathedral  for  me  in  enduring  stone ;  make  it  with 
hands  ;  let  it  direct  its  sure  and  clear  appeal  to  my  senses,  so 
that  when  my  spirit  is  vaguely  groping  after  an  elusive  mood 
my  eye  shall  be  caught  by  the  skyward  tower,  showing  me 
where,  within  the  cathedral,  I  may  find  my  way  to  the 
cathedral  within  me."  Reading  these  words  one  might  have 
paused,  wondering  whether  Shaw  would  always  believe 
mysticism  to  be  argument  about  nothing,  and  whether  his 
work  might  not  bridge  the  rationalist  gap  between  the  old 
mysticism  and  the  new. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   HIGHER  DRAMA 

"  If  every  manager  considers  it  due  tu  himself  to  produce  nothing  cheaper  than 
The  Prisoner  of  Zenda,  not  to  mention  the  splendours  of  the  Lyceum,  then  good- 
bye to  high  dramatic  art.  The  managers  will,  perhaps,  retort  that,  if  high 
dramatic  art  means  Ibsen,  then  they  ask  for  nothing  better  than  to  get  rid  of  it. 
I  am  too  polite  to  reply,  bluntly,  that  high  dramatic  art  does  mean  Ibsen ;  that 
Ibsen's  plays  are  at  this  moment  the  head  of  the  dramatic  body ;  and  that 
though  an  actor  manager  can,  and  often  does,  do  without  a  head,  dramatic  art 
cannot." — G.B.S.  in  The  Saturday  Review,  1897. 

IF  it  takes  more  than  two  sAvallows  to  make  a  summer, 
it  certainly  takes  more  than  two  playwrights  to  make 
a  dramatic  renaissance.  That  being  admitted,  no  one 
could  say  that  the  plays  of  Oscar  Wilde  and  Bernard  Shaw- 
constituted  in  themselves  a  "  new  "  drama.  Such  a  definite 
achievement  cannot  be  credited  to  the  period.  But  what 
can  be  credited  to  the  period  is  the  creation  of  an  atmosphere 
in  which  a  new  drama  might  flourish  at  the  appointed  hour. 
This  was  done  by  the  art  of  criticism,  and  chiefly  by  Bernard 
Shaw,  VViUiam  Archer  and  J,  T.  Grein,  whose  example  and 
ideal  was  Ibsen.  These  three  critics  were  more  than  con- 
vinced and  ardent  Ibsenists  ;  they  were  capable  and  tireless 
in  propagation  of  the  cause,  Bernard  Shaw  as  critic  and 
philosopher,  William  Archer  as  critic  and  translator  of  the 
Master's  plays,  and  J.  T.  Grein  as  critic,  producer  and 
founder  of  the  Independent  Theatre,  the  earliest  definite 
home  of  the  Higher  Drama.  And  with  them,  but  not  of 
them,  was  A.  B.  Walkley,  critic  pure  and  simple,  pouring  oil 
upon  the  waters  of  revolt  with  irony  and  intellectual  banter 
born  of  a  capacity  for  taking  an  uncompromising  middle 
attitude,  and  with  a  common-sense  which  amounted  in  itself 
to  genius. 

These   critics   differed  from  their  kind  by  an  avowedly 
205 


206  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

personal  approach,  and  they  flaunted  their  apostasy  in 
the  face  of  those  who  were  content  to  maintain  the  old 
theatrical  methods.  The  appeal  to  personal  taste  might 
easily  have  been  ignored  by  the  upholders  of  convention 
had  it  not  been  made  by  critics  of  undoubted  skill  and 
unanswerable  certainty  of  aim.  The  new  critics  accepted 
their  o^vn  view  of  the  state  of  the  drama  with  as  much 
deliberation  as  the  old  accepted  the  view  of  tradition  and 
convention.  They  were  frankly  impressionist  and  auto- 
biographical. Walkley  called  his  first  collection  of  critical 
essays  Playhouse  Lmjyressions  (1892),  and  admitted  to 
adventuring  among  masterpieces  in  the  approved  method 
of  Anatole  France.  The  diaries  of  Marie  Bashkirtseff  were 
among  the  books  of  the  hour,  and  he  coined  the  verb  "  to 
bashkirtseff,"  for  the  purpose,  emphasising  a  method  which 
had  also  been  defended  by  Oscar  Wilde,  Shaw  was  even 
more  autobiographical,  but  prophecy,  and  purpose  other 
than  the  entertainment  of  a  moment  or  an  hour,  lurked  be- 
hind his  most  indiscreet  confession.  He  did  not  argue  from 
precedent,  it  is  true,  but  he  sought  all  the  more  energetically 
to  establish  new  precedents,  chief  among  which  were  a  drama 
of  ideas  and  "a  pit  of  philosophers  " — and  Ibsen,  Ibsen, 
Ibsen,  toujours  Ibsen  I 

The  all-or-nothing  seriousness  of  G.B.S.  is  happily  re- 
corded in  the  follo\\ing  passage  from  Walkley's  book,  which 
purports  to  describe  the  author's  friend,  Euthyphro,  but 
whose  identity  is  otherwise  obvious  : — "A  universal  genius, 
a  brilliant  political  economist,  a  Fabian  of  the  straitest  sect 
of  the  Fabians,  a  critic  (of  other  arts  than  the  dramatic), 
comme  il  y  en  a  j^eu,  he  persists,  where  the  stage  is  concerned, 
in  crying  for  the  moon,  and  will  not  be  satisfied,  as  the  rest 
of  us  have  learned  to  be,  with  the  only  attainable  substitute, 
a  good  wholesome  cheese.  His  standard  of  taste  is  as  much 
too  high  as  Crito's  is  too  low.  He  asks  from  the  theatre 
more  than  the  theatre  can  give,  and  quarrels  with  the 
theatre  because  it  is  theatrical.  He  lumps  La  Tosca  and 
A  Man's  Shadow  together  as  'French  machine-made  plays,' 
and,  because  he  is  not  edified  by  them,  refuses  to  be  merely 


THE  HIGHER  DRAMA  207 

amused.  Because  The  Dead  Heart  is  not  on  the  level  of  a 
Greek  tragedy,  he  is  blind  to  its  merits  as  a  pantomime.  He 
refuses  to  recognise  the  advance  made  by  Mr  Pinero,  because 
Mr  Pinero  has  not  yet  advanced  as  far  as  Henrik  Ibsen. 
Half  a  loaf,  the  wise  agree,  is  better  than  no  bread  ;  but  be- 
cause it  is  only  half  a  loaf,  Euthyphro  complains  that  they 
have  given  him  a  stone." 

More  than  twenty  years  have  passed  since  the  abo\-c  words 
were  written,  and  what  A.  B.  Walkley  imagined  to  be  a 
demand  for  more  than  the  theatre  could  give  has  actually 
produced  a  new  drama,  if  not  a  new  theatre,  and  the  succeed- 
ing generation,  in  the  person  of  Gordon  Craig,  is  already 
making  demands  which  even  iconoclasts  of  the  Nineties 
would  have  considered  impossible. 

William  Archer  is  the  father  of  modern  dramatic  criticism 
in  this  country,  and  he  was  introducing  ideas  and  an  intelli- 
gent seriousness  into  this  disappointing  and  most  thankless 
branch  of  criticism  as  far  back  as  the  middle  eighties,  with 
such  books  as  About  the  Theatre  (1886)  and  Masks  or  Faces  ? 
(1888).  He  shared  the  honours  of  being  one  of  the  earliest 
translators  of  Ibsen  with  Edmond  Gosse,  Eleanor  Marx 
Aveling  (daughter  of  Karl  Marx),  and  his  own  brother, 
Charles  Archer,  who  collaborated  vath.  him  in  several  trans- 
lations now  in  the  complete  English  edition.^ 

On  7th  June  1889  Charles  Charrington  began  the  dramatic 
renaissance  by  producing  A  DolVs  House  at  the  Novelty 
Theatre,  with  Janet  Achurch  in  the  part  of  Nora.  The  play 
had  been  called  the  Hernani  of  the  new  dramatic  movement 
in  England,  and  the  title  has  been  justified  to  the  full.  An 
interest  was  aroused  such  as  had  not  been  known  in  artistic 
circles  since  the  first  performances  of  Wagner's  operas,  and 
the  appearance  of  the  Impressionist  painters  ;  and  it  was 
increased  a  thousandfold  by  the  production  of  Ghosts  and 

1  The  work  of  bringing  together  the  complete  edition  of  Ibsen  in 
English  was  begun  in  1888,  but  long  before  a  complete  translation  of 
the  works  had  been  dreamt  of  there  was  much  interest  in  Ibsen's 
plays  in  this  country,  and  Emperor  and  Galilean  was  the  first  of  the 
plays  to  be  translated  into  English,  by  Catherine  Ray,  in  1876. 


208  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Hedda  Gabler,  in  1891,  when  the  new  manifestation  of  drama 
turned  the  opposition  of  the  older  critics  into  indignation 
and  reduced  theu*  criticism  to  a  wild  display  of  invective 
and  vituperation.  It  was,  as  William  Archer  said  at  the 
time,  ''  probably  the  most  obstinate  and  rancorous  prejudice 
recorded  in  the  history  of  the  stage."  Bernard  Shaw's 
account  of  Clement  Scott's  criticism  of  Ghosts  in  The  Daily 
Telegraph,  and  the  famous  leading  article  in  the  same  issue 
(14th  March  1891),  recalls  the  anxiety  of  the  older  genera- 
tion when  confronted  with  this  frank  drama.  The  leading 
article,  he  wTote,  compared  the  play  to  an  open  drain,  a 
loathsome  sore  unbandaged,  a  dirty  act  done  publicly,  or  a 
lazar-house  with  all  its  doors  and  windows  open.  Bestial, 
cynical,  disgusting,  poisonous,  sickly,  delirious,  indecent, 
loathsome,  fetid,  literary  carrion,  crapulous  stuff,  clinical 
confessions  ;  all  these  epithets  were  used  in  the  article  as 
descriptions  of  Ibsen's  work.  One  passage  in  the  same 
leader  said:  "Realism  is  one  thing;  but  the  nostrils  of 
the  audience  must  not  be  visibly  held  before  a  play  can 
be  stamped  as  true  to  nature.  It  is  difficult  to  expose  in 
decorous  words,"  the  writer  continued,  "the  gross  and 
almost  putrid  indecorum  of  this  play."  And  as  more  than 
one  critic  called  upon  the  law  to  protect  the  players 
against  such  dramas,  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the 
righteous  indignation  aroused  at  the  inception  of  the 
new  drama. 

After  the  hrst  experiment  with  A  DolVs  House,  Charles 
Charrington  took  his  company  on  a  world  tour,  and  Janet 
Achurch  played  the  part  of  Nora  over  one  hundred  and  fifty 
times  in  Australia,  New  Zealand,  India  and  Egypt.  This 
tour  took  something  like  three  years,  and  when  the  pioneers 
returned  to  London  they  found  Ibsen  engaging  the  interest 
of  all  the  more  thoughtful  playgoers.  A  DolVs  House  was 
therefore  revived  at  the  Avenue  Theatre  (now  the  Play- 
house) on  19th  April  1892,  and  the  same  year  saw  the  fh'st 
stage  performance  of  plays  by  Oscar  Wilde  and  Bernard 
Shaw.  The  following  year,  however,  was  more  memorable 
in  the  dramatic  renaissance,  for  it  saw  the  production  of  no 


THE  HIGHER  DRAMA  209 

less  than  six  plays  by  Ibsen — The  Master  Builder,  Rosmers- 
holm,  Hedda  Gabler,  Brand  (Fourth  Act),  An  Enemy  of  the 
People,  and  A  DolVs  House,  and  the  Independent  Theatre 
produced  five  modern  plays,  one  adaptation  and  one  trans- 
lation, and,  more  important  still,  tliree  by  modern  British 
playwrights  :  The  Strike  at  Arlingford,  by  George  Moore 
(his  first  play),  2'he  Black  Cat,  by  John  Todhunter,  and 
A  Question  of  Memory,  by  "Michael  Field."  Besides  these 
came  The  Second  Mrs  Tanqueray,  by  Pinero,  A  Woman  of  No 
Importance,  by  Oscar  Wilde,  and  The  Bauble  Shop,  by  Henry 
Arthur  Jones,  all  of  which  were  in  the  modern  movement 
and  contributing  to  the  newly  awakened  intelligent  interest 
in  the  theatre. 

The  appetite  for  a  new  drama  thus  created  might  have  en- 
couraged managers  and  propagandist  promoters  to  venture 
further  afield,  but  it  did  nothing  of  the  sort.  After  1893, 
and  for  practically  seven  years,  there  was  very  little  en- 
couragement for  those  who  stood  for  the  higher  drama.  It 
is  true  that  plays  by  advanced  foreigners  as  important  as 
Bjornson  Bjornstjerne,  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  Sudermann  and 
Echegaray,  and  a  number  of  classical  dramas  managed  to 
get  produced  ;  but  Bernard  Shaw  could  find  only  occasional 
cliances  of  production  for  his  own  plays,  and  the  younger 
school,  since  evolved  out  of  his  teaching  and  criticism,  was 
not  yet  born.  The  new  drama  was  in  the  main  an  occasional 
affair,  highly  experimental,  and  appealing  only  to  a  small 
and  seriously  minded  group  of  'intellectuals  "  in  London. 
They  very  largely  belonged  to  the  Uterary  fringe  of  the 
Fabian  Society  and  other  reform  and  revolutionary  organ- 
isations, and  these  were  practically  the  sole  supporters  of 
the  efforts  of  the  Independent  Theatre,  the  Stage  Society 
and  the  New  Centuiy  Theatre. 

Such  a  poor  result  from  early  efforts  towards  a  new  drama 
ought  not  to  have  been,  and,  in  fact,  was  not,  unexpected. 
The  new  movement  was  so  radical  in  its  demands  that  it 
had  first  to  create  conditions  in  which  it  could  exist.  Every- 
thing was  against  rapid  progress.  It  was  not  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  art,  dramatic  or  theatrical ;    it  was  a  question  also  of 


210  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

economics,  of  professional  interests,  and  of  theatrical  habit 
and  public  indifference  to  anything  that  did  not  entertain  by 
laughter  or  tears.  The  new  drama  already  existed  on  the 
Continent  in  the  plays  of  Ibsen,  Hauptmann,  Maeterlinck, 
Sudermann,  Strindberg  and  othere  ;  and  both  theatres  and 
audiences  were  coming  into  existence  in  support  of  it. 
But  here,  save  for  Bernard  Shaw  and  Oscar  Wilde,  we  pos- 
sessed no  native  plays  at  all  comparable  with  these  foreign 
ones,  and  until  there  was  a  certainty  of  such  plays  being  pro- 
duced few  authors  could  be  expected  to  go  on  writing  them. 
For  that  reason  the  new  movement  was  forced  to  be  mainly 
critical.  Its  chief  material  objects  of  attack  were  the 
dominance  of  the  actor  manager  and  his  demand  for  plays 
written  around  himself,  and  the  general  theatrical  custom  of 
seeking  only  plays  that  promised  a  "  long  run."  These  two 
conditions  stood  in  the  way  of  a  new  drama  because  the 
modern  di'ama,  being  impressionist  and  realist,  did  not  see 
life  as  an  episode  dominated  by  an  attractive  personality 
more  or  less  resembling  some  popular  actor  manager ;  it 
only  offered  such  eminence  by  accident,  as  in  the  case  of 
Dr  Stockmann  in  An  Enemy  of  the  People,  which  was  pro- 
duced with  considerable  popular  success,  and  the  minimum 
of  Ibsenism,  by  Beerbohm  Tree,  in  1893.  And,  secondly, 
the  only  chance  of  promoting  variety  of  plays  of  the  new- 
type,  actors  in  sufficient  numbers  to  perform  them,  and 
audiences  of  sufficient  intelligence  and  sufficient  interest  to 
maintain  them,  was  by  a  return  to  the  repertory  system. 
Abnormal  rents  for  theatres,  abnormal  salaries  for  principal 
actors,  and  the  absence  of  small  and  convenient  theatres 
Avere  also  among  the  first  obstacles  to  the  realisation  of  these 
ambitions. 

But  these  were  not  all  the  seemingly  insurmountable  diffi- 
culties ;  the  greatest  stumbling  block  was  the  creation  of  an 
audience  large  enough  to  make  the  newer  plays  a  financial 
possibility.  This  was  no  easy  matter.  At  no  time  are 
there  many  people  in  this  or  perhaps  any  country  who  can 
be  relied  upon  to  show  much  enthusiasm  for  ideas  and 
psychological  and  social    problems,  especially  in  a  theatre 


THE  HIGHER  DRAMA  211 

which  has  for  generations  been  looked  upon  as  a  place  of 
idle  amusement.  The  advocates  of  the  higher  drama  were 
serious  and  purposeful  persons.  With  the  exception  of 
Bernard  Shaw  and  Oscar  ^Vilde,  there  was  no  laughter 
in  them.  They  and  their  followers  could  laugh,  but  they 
preferred  the  mental  smile.  Their  demand  was  for  dramatic 
literature  :  dramas  which  represented  a  personal  point  of 
view,  expressed  in  impressionistic  terms  revealing  the  play 
of  temperament  in  conflict  with  convention,  and  will  in 
conflict  with  circumstance,  and  always  indicating  by  implica- 
tion the  ideas  underlying  the  theme.  Such  plays  were  not 
only  to  be  playable  ;  they  were  to  be  readable  as  well — they 
were  to  combine  the  good  stage  play  and  the  good  book.  As 
we  know,  the  higher  dramatic  movement  did  produce  plays 
answering  these  demands.  But  it  was  not  always  so  easy 
to  reveal  the  idea  behind  the  play.  Bernard  Shaw  had  to 
write  The  Quintessence  of  Ibsenisni  to  show  what  Ibsen's 
plays  meant,  and  long  prefaces  and  appendices  to  show  what 
his  own  plays  meant.  Endless  were  the  discussions  as  to  the 
meaning  of  TJie  Master  Builder  (Israel  Zangwill  called  it 
"The  Master  Bewilderer  ")  ;  and  intellectuals  of  all  kinds 
yearned  for  the  prefaces  Ibsen  might  have  written  but  didn't. 
But  the  old  Norwegian  dramatist  let  them  yearn.  With  the 
plays  of  Shaw  the  higher  drama  became  a  drama  of  dis- 
cussion. It  was  realistic  only  incidentally  ;  in  inception  it 
was  problematic,  and  in  effect  argumentative,  without  any 
definite  conclusion.  Ideas  were  generally  left  very  much  in 
the  air  until  the  play  was  printed,  when  the  author  told  you 
all  about  his  aims  in  a  long,  idea-laden  and  entertaining 
preface.  This  argumentative  tendency  developed  in  his  art 
until  the  action  of  his  later  plays  became  entirely  conversa- 
tional ;  and  to  prevent  any  illusions  as  to  his  intentions  he 
called  these  plays  discussions. 

Out  of  the  discussion  of  plays  and  ideas  the  new  drama 
ultimately  came.  Translations  of  good  foreign  plays  began 
to  appear  frequently,  and  they  were  read  by  a  select  but 
ever-growing  public.  Interest  also  was  aroused  in  the  older 
dramatists,  and  both  Henry  Ining  and  Beerbohm  Tree  drew 


212  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

large  audiences  to  their  highly  decorated  revivals  of  Shake- 
speare ;  a  still  more  genuine  enthusiasm  was  created  )3y  the 
excellent  Shakespearean  Repertoire  Company  of  ¥.  11.  Ben- 
son, in  the  provinces.  But  with  all  this  activity  the  main 
line  of  the  modernist  advance  was  diverted  by  a  character- 
istic compromise  on  the  part  of  the  public.  Ibsen  did  not 
pay  ;  but  it  was  felt  that  realism  in  a  modern  setting,  if  the 
themes  in  themselves  were  likeable  and  capable  of  a  senti- 
mental response,  might  be  popular.  Obviously,  the  game 
would  be  to  hearten  realism  with  a  dash  of  sentimcntalism  ; 
in  short,  to  water  down  Ibsen  ;  not  to  declare  that  "it  is 
right  to  do  something  hitherto  regarded  as  infamous  "  {vide 
G.B.S.),  but  to  treat  seriously,  in  a  play  with  no  specific 
purpose,  something  liitherto  considered  as  naughty  and 
therefore  only  deserving  of  facetious  comment,  and  to  call 
it  a  "problem  play."  And  if  you  could  provoke  a  tear  at 
the  naughtiness  out  of  which  a  Labiche  would  have  raised  a 
laugh,  so  much  the  better — you  would  be  both  modern  and 
popular. 

This  actually  happened.  Oscar  Wilde  did  it  with  A 
Woinan  of  No  Importance  ;  Henry  Arthur  Jones  did  it  with 
The  Case  of  Rebellious  Susan,  and  Arthur  \Ving  Pinero  did  it 
with  The  Second  Mrs  Tanqueraij.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted 
that  these  playwTights  were  pioneers  of  the  new  movement, 
but  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  they  were  pioneers  by 
compromise.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  was  an  upholder  of  real- 
ism, but  his  plays  of  this  time  do  not  approximate  to  the 
realism  of  Ibsen  or  Tolstoy  or  Strindberg  ;  they  are  realistic 
only  in  so  far  as  realism  is  consistent  with  the  conviction  that 
the  artist  is  an  interpreter  of  dreams,  a  translator  of  real  life 
into  imaginative  concepts.  Quite  seriously,  logically  and 
successfully,  \A'ilde,  Pinero  and  Jones  worked  along  these 
lines,  and  by  so  doing  placed  themselves  in  the  direct  tradi- 
tion of  the  established  drama,  upon  which  they  succeeded  in 
doing  little  more  than  graft  some  new  l)ranches.  Now  Ibsen 
possessed  only  the  most  elementary  connection  with  tradi- 
tional drama.  He  was  as  distinct  from  the  current  trend  of 
European  drama  that  had  preceded  him  as  Euripides  was 


THE  HIGHER  DRAMA  213 

from  the  Greek  drama,  as  Moliorc  was  from  the  French  drama, 
and  as  Shakespeare  was  from  the  EngUsh  drama,  which  had 
preceded  them.  Ibsen  discovered  tlieatrical  reahty,  and  he 
made  it  so  real  that  half  the  opposition  to  his  drama  was  due 
to  the  discomfort  most  people  experience  when  brought  face 
to  face  with  a  new  revelation  of  facts  or  ideas.  Those  who 
compromised  achieved  no  such  effect ;  they  were  merely 
illusionists,  using  reality  to  further  illusion,  rather  than 
illusion  to  further  reality. 

Bernard  Shaw  was  not  deceived  by  this  quasi-modernism. 
In  1895  he  wrote  :  "  The  unfortunate  new  dramatist  has 
...  to  WTite  plays  so  extraordinarily  good  that,  like  Mozart's 
operas,  they  succeed  in  spite  of  inadequate  execution.  This 
is  all  very  well  for  geniuses  like  Ibsen  ;  but  it  is  rather  hard 
on  the  ordinary  purveyor  of  the  drama.  The  managers  do 
not  seem  to  me  yet  to  grasp  this  feature  of  the  situation.  If 
they  did,  they  would  only  meddle  with  the  strongest  speci- 
mens of  the  new  drama,  instead  of  timidly  going  to  the  old 
firms  and  ordering  moderate  plays  cut  in  the  new  style.  No 
doubt  the  success  of  The  Second  Mrs  Tanqueray  and  The 
Case  of  Rebellious  Susan  seemed  to  support  the  view  that  the 
new  style  had  better  be  tried  cautiously  by  an  old  hand. 
But  then  Mrs  Tanqueray  had  not  the  faintest  touch  of  the 
new  spirit  in  it ;  and  recent  events  suggest  that  its  success 
was  due  to  a  happy  cast  of  the  dice  by  which  the  play  found 
an  actress  ^  who  doubled  its  value  and  had  hers  doubled 
by  it."  William  Archer  took  a  more  lenient  view  of  the 
situation.  He  referred  to  the  play  in  1893  as  "  the  one  play 
of  what  may  be  called  European  merit  which  the  modern 
English  stage  can  yet  boast,"  and  he  went  on  to  advise 
Pinero's  fellow-craftsmen  to  follow  the  lead  set  by  The  Second 
Mrs  Tanqueray,  because  Pinero  had  "  inserted  the  thin  end 
of  the  wedge,"  and  "I  firmly  believe,"  he  said,  "that  not 
only  the  ambition  but  the  material  interests  of  our  other 
dramatists  will  prompt  them  to  follow  his  lead,  and  that, 
therefore,  we  are  indeed  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  epoch." 

That  proved  to  be  true.  The  Second  Mrs  Tanqueray, 
^  Mrs  Patrick  Campbell. 


214  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

although  it  was  not  of  the  "advanced  movement,"  was 
really  a  part  of  the  movement.  It  was  the  first  effeet  on  the 
English  stage  of  the  influenee  of  Ibsen  and  the  propagand- 
ists of  the  modern  drama.  And  even  its  faults  as  a  play  are 
faults  only  in  comparison  with  the  Ibsen  standard.  It  is  a 
play  possessing  both  intelligent  idea  and  problem,  but  above 
all  it  possesses  a  masterly  stage  technique  which  alone  makes 
it  worthy  to  be  considered  with  the  works  of  great  modern 
masters.  There  is  little  doubt  again  that  the  modernist 
plays  of  Pinero  and  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  and  certain  produc- 
tions of  R.  C.  Carton  and  Sydney  Grundy,  did  tone  up  the 
moribund  popular  stage,  and  so  aided  the  revolutionists  by 
teaching  the  average  playgoer  to  tune  his  brain  to  a  higher 
seriousness  than  had  hitherto  been  his  habit. 

But  the  real  expression  of  the  new  movement,  the  main 
tendency,  did  not  find  an  outlet  during  the  Nineties.  That 
was  not  possible  until  the  close  of  the  decade,  when,  in  the 
person  of  H.  Granville  Barker,  the  Stage  Society  found 
the  medium  for  the  realisation  of  the  decade-old  dreams  of 
the  leaders  of  the  modern  movement.  Dramatist,  actor  and 
producer,  Granville  Barker  was  the  man  whom  the  moment 
and  the  movement  required,  and  after  several  successes 
\vithin  the  Stage  Society  he  took  a  daring  leap  on  to  the 
regular  stage  by  engaging,  ^\^th  C.  E.  Vedrenne  as  busi- 
ness partner,  the  Royal  Court  Theatre,  Sloane  Square.  By 
doing  so  he  proved  that  the  plays  of  Bernard  Shaw  had 
immense  popular  and,  as  a  natural  outcome,  financial  possi- 
bilities of  success  ;  that  it  was  also  possible,  within  certain 
limits,  to  run  a  repertory  theatre,  and,  perhaps  most  import- 
ant of  all,  that  we  had  a  growing  native  school  of  modem 
dramatists  of  power  and  distinction.  This  new  school  in- 
cluded John  Galsworthy,  St  John  Hankin,  John  Masefield, 
Frederick  Fenn,  and  Granville  Barker  himself,  whose  play, 
The  Voysey  Inheritance,  stands  among  the  finest  products  of 
the  dramatic  renaissance.  These  plays  have  since  been  per- 
formed, along  with  others  wliich  follow  in  the  new  tradition, 
at  modern  repertory  theatres  in  Glasgow,  Manchester  and 
Liverpool,   and    by   touring    companies    appealing   to   just 


THE  HIGHER  DRAMA  215 

such   audiences   as    the    men    of   the   Nineties    desired   to 
create. 

The  development  of  the  movement  on  the  regular  stage 
as  patronised  by  the  average  playgoer  is  not  so  marked. 
But  even  here  the  new  spirit  has  had  its  effect,  for  though 
melodrama,  facetious  comedy  and  musical  farce  still  main- 
tain preposterously  long  "runs,"  shoA^ng  that  their  place, 
as  it  is  bound  to  be,  is  as  secure  as  ever,  it  is  no  longer  im- 
possible to  find  inteUigent  entertainment  at  any  time  of  the 
year  in  one  or  another  of  the  London  theatres.  The  higher 
dramatic  activity  born  in  the  last  decade  of  the  old  century 
has  lived  thus  far  into  the  new,  justifying  the  energy  which 
supported  its  inception. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   NEW   FICTION 

THE  realist  movement  spread  among  novelists  and 
\mters  of  fiction  with  even  more  rapidity  than  it  in- 
vaded the  dramatic  realm.  With  epidemic  sudden- 
ness ^^Titers  of  all  kinds  began  to  be  realistic  in  their  fiction. 
The  reading  public  was  not  unprepared  for  the  new  tendency, 
for,  at  about  the  same  time,  a  cheap  edition  of  the  novels  of 
Zola  was  put  upon  the  market  and  devoured  eagerly  without 
anybody  appearing  to  be  more  than  pleasantly  shocked. 
The  edition  was  expurgated  somewhat,  but  even  then 
passages  were  left  untouched  which  only  a  very  few  years 
earlier  would  have  aroused  the  condemnation  of  the  Noncon- 
formist conscience.  Still,  what  a  Frenchman  might  do  with 
impunity  did  not  go  without  question  when  repeated,  even 
in  a  milder  way,  by  native  writers.  There  was  a  storm-in-a- 
tea-cup  in  certain  circles,  for  instance,  when  Thomas  Hardy 
issued  Jude  the  Obscure,  and  George  Moore,  Esther  Waters ; 
and  the  storm  was  heightened  on  the  appearance  of  Grant 
Allen's  Woman  Who  Did,  and  such  realistic  studies  of 
slum  life  as  Arthur  Morrison's  Tales  of  Mean  Streets  and 
A  Child  of  the  Jago.  But  even  this  blew  over  when  the 
newspapers  considered  their  readers  had  had  enough  of 
the  subject,  and  no  more  serious  damage  was  done  than 
a  few  suppressions  by  the  autocrats  of  the  popular  lending 
libraries,  notably  in  the  cases  of  Judc  the  Obscure  and 
Esther  Waters,  which  prohibitions,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  had  the  result  of  drawing  more  than  usual  atten- 
tion to  these  remarkable  books.  The  matter  in  the  end 
was  not  settled  one  way  or  the  other  ;  it  simply  lapsed,  and 
publishers  and  authors  proceeded  to  develop  from  frankness 
to  frankness  without  either  endangering  their  reputations, 

216 


THE  NEW  FICTION  217 

their  readers'  morals,  or,  ultimately,  of  causing  surprise  or 
sustained  opposition  from  any  quarter. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  howe\'er,  that,  whilst  the  more  daring 
of  the  realists  aroused  a  new  interest  in  the  art  of  the  novel, 
there  were  still  more  critics  to  denounce  than  to  uphold  the 
new  method.  Not  only  was  this  the  fact  with  reference  to 
realism,  but  it  was  the  fact  also  with  reference  to  the  problem 
novel,  what  was  called  "  the  novel  with  a  purpose,"  and  also 
to  the  still  more  modern  fiction  of  temperament  and  psycho- 
logical analysis  represented  by  such  writers  as  George 
Egerton  and  Sarah  Grand.  Discussions  were  lengthy  and 
heated,  and  many  good  people  of  the  time,  looking  backward 
at  the  large  geniality  and  splendid  sanity  of  Charles  Dickens, 
the  high  moral  purpose  of  George  Eliot,  and  the  tine  culture 
and  unimpeachable  respectability  of  Thackeray,  had  grave 
forebodings  for  their  own  times  and  serious  doubts  as  to  the 
wisdom  of  the  successors  of  the  accepted  masters.  They 
forgot,  of  course,  that  the  realism  of  Oliver  Twist  had  been 
criticised  in  its  day,  and  that  there  were  even  people  who 
doubted  the  wisdom  of  Thackeray's  mild  frankness  in  Vanity 
Fair. 

What  the  objectors  did  not  realise,  and  this  was  perhaps 
the  most  important  circumstance  of  all,  was  that  the  new 
fiction  was  big  enough  and  attractive  enough  to  be  worth  a 
fight,  and  that  that  in  itself  was  a  sign  of  literary  health  and 
vitality.  Discussion  is  always  a  characteristic  of  renascent 
periods  in  art  and  life.  "  Art  lives  upon  discussion,"  avows 
Henry  James,  "upon  experiment,  upon  curiosity,  upon 
variety  of  attempt,  upon  the  exchange  of  views,  and  the  com- 
parison of  standpoints  ;  and  there  is  a  presumption  that  the 
times  when  no  one  has  anything  particular  to  say  about  it, 
and  has  no  reason  to  give  for  practice  or  preference,  though 
they  may  be  times  of  honour,  are  not  times  of  development 
— are  times,  possibly,  even,  a  little  of  dullness."  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  tim.es  under  review  were  times  of 
creative  development,  and  above  all  they  were  far  from  dull 
in  any  branch  of  art,  particularly  in  that  of  the  novel. 

A  new  impetus  and  a  wider  range  of  action,  amounting  to 


218  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

a  ne^v  lease  of  life,  had  been  given  to  that  hterary  form  by 
the  abohtion  of  the  old  three-volume  method  of  publication, 
whose  unwieldy  size  and  exorbitant  priee  had  had  the  effect 
of  chaining  the  novel  to  the  circulating  libraries.  Many 
authors,  notably  Hall  Caine,  worked  tirelessly  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  outmoded  three-volume  novel,  and  finally  they 
won  a  victory  more  swiftly  and  more  completely  than  their 
M'ildest  hopes  had  anticipated.  After  a  remarkably  short 
fight  the  publishers  capitulated  and  introduced  the  now 
familiar  and,  until  quite  recentl)^,  omnipresent  six-shilling 
volume.  The  passing  of  the  old  novel  format  was  import- 
ant because  it  represented  a  great  deal  more  than  the  passing 
of  a  mere  form  of  publication.  Actually  it  was  the  capitula- 
tion of  a  type  of  novel :  the  old  sentimental  lending-library 
novel  of  polite  romantic  atmosphere  and  crudely  happy 
endings ;  the  novel  which  was  guaranteed  to  tax  no  brain 
by  thought  and  to  vex  no  code  of  morals  by  revolutionary 
suggestions,  but  by  a  determined  rejection  of  anything 
approaching  problem  or  idea,  or  even  psychology,  was  calcu- 
lated to  produce  that  drowsy  state  of  mild  peacefulness 
which  many  people  believe  to  be  the  end  and  aim  of  all  good 
literature.  There  were  few  to  regret  its  demise,  and  even 
these  were  ironical  in  the  hour  of  regret.  Chief  among  them 
was  Rudyard  Kipling,  who  gave  the  departed  three-volume 
novel  poetical  honours  in  some  verses  called  ' '  The  Three- 
Decker  " : 

"  We  asked  no  social  questions — we  pumped  no  hidden  shame — 
We  never  talked  obstetrics  when  the  Little  Stranger  came  : 
We  left  the  Lord  in  Heaven,  we  left  the  fiends  in  Hell. 
We  weren't  exactly  Yussufs,  but — Zuleika  didn't  tell.'- 

The  new  fiction  did  all  these  things,  and,  to  its  credit  be  it 
said,  it  did  them  within  the  limits  of  the  art  of  the  novel  and 
with  the  ultimate  result  of  increasing  the  number  of  novel 
readers  beyond  all  bounds. 

Some  idea  of  the  more  re})utable  body  of  opinion  aroused 
against  the  manifestation  of  realistic  tendencies  in  literature 
may  be  gathered   from  an  article,  entitled   ''  Reticence  in 


THE  NEW  FICTION  219 

Literature,"  contributed  by  Arthur  Waugh  to  the  first 
number  of  The  Yellow  Book.  The  beginnings  of  the  new- 
frankness,  particularly  in  its  insistence  upon  sex,  is  traced 
in  this  article  to  Swinburne  ;  but  the  frankness  of  the  modern 
novel  had  descended  directly  from  the  French  realists. 
Arthur  Waugh  detected  two  developments  of  modern  real- 
ism ;  one  towards  excess  promoted  by  effeminacy,  "  by  the 
want  of  restraint  which  starts  from  enervated  sensations  " ; 
and  the  other  towards  "  the  excess  which  results  from  a 
certain  brutal  virility,  which  proceeds  from  coarse  familiarity 
with  indulgence."  He  went  on  to  say  that,  "The  one 
whispers,  the  other  shouts  ;  the  one  is  the  language  of  the 
courtesan,  the  other  of  the  bargee.  What  we  miss  in  both 
alike,"  he  continued,  "  is  that  true  frankness  which  springs 
from  the  artistic  and  moral  temperament ;  the  episodes  are 
not  part  of  a  whole  in  unity  with  itself ;  the  impression  they 
leave  upon  the  reader  is  not  the  impression  of  Hogarth's 
pictures  ;  in  one  form  they  employ  all  their  art  to  render 
vice  attractive  ;  in  the  other,  with  absolutely  no  art  at  all, 
they  merely  reproduce,  with  the  fidelity  of  the  kodak,  scenes 
and  situations  the  existence  of  which  we  all  acknowledge, 
while  taste  prefers  to  forget  them."  He  then  proceeded  to 
stigmatise  the  latest  development  of  literary  frankness  which 
he  believed  to  be  both  inartistic  and  a  danger  to  art.  "  A 
new  school  has  arisen  which  combines  the  characteristics  of 
effeminacy  and  brutality.  In  its  effeminate  aspect  it  plays 
with  the  subtler  emotions  of  sensual  pleasure,  on  its  brutal 
side  it  has  developed  into  that  class  of  fiction  which  for  want 
of  a  better  word  I  must  call  chirurgical.  In  poetry  it  deals 
with  very  much  the  same  passions  as  those  which  we  have 
placed  in  the  verses  to  which  allusion  has  been  made  above  ^  ; 
but,  instead  of  leaving  these  refinements  of  lust  to  the  haunts 
to  which  they  are  fitted,  it  has  introduced  them  into  the 
domestic  chamber,  and  permeated  marriage  with  the  ardours 
of  promiscuous  intercourse.  In  fiction  it  affects  its  heroines 
with  acquired  diseases  of  names  unmentionable,  and  has  de- 
based the  beauty  of  maternity  by  analysis  of  the  process  of 
^  "Dolores,"  by  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne. 


220  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

gestation.  Siirely  the  inartistic  temperament  can  scarcely 
abuse  literature  further.  I  own  I  can  conceive  nothing  less 
beautiful."  Tennyson  was  quoted  in  a  familiar  couplet  to 
buttress  this  argument,  and  the  critic  concluded  by  advocat- 
ing reticence  and  humility  in  art  as  being  the  most  necessary 
equipment  for  the  production  of  beauty  and  the  achievement 
of  immortality. 

The  line  of  defence  taken  by  the  upholders  of  frankness  in 
literatm-e  began  by  repudiating  any  precise  desire  for  either 
immortality,  beauty  or  even  morality.  The  modernist  was 
not  only  frank,  he  was  frankly  amoral ;  his  one  concern  was 
to  get  into  his  work  the  quality  of  life,  the  sense  of  reality, 
irrespective  of  the  presence  or  absence  of  moral  ideas,  leaving 
beauty  and  immortality  to  cliance.  At  that  period  there 
was  no  very  particular  denial  of  the  idea  or  necessl'^-  cT 
beauty,  as  there  is  among  the  more  "  advanced  "  artists  of 
to-day,  nor  did  the  writers  of  the  time  repudiate  immortality. 
Immortality,  they  implied,  should,  like  Whistler's  idea  of 
art,  happen,  but  as  to  beauty,  they  were  convinced  that 
what  they  did  sincerely,  truthfully  and  realistically,  would 
ultimately  be  considered  beautiful.  And  Hubert  Crackan- 
thorpe,  in  a  reply  to  Arthur  Waugh,  was  so  convinced  of  the 
righteousness  of  the  modern  method  in  fiction  that  he  was 
able  to  write  :  "  Let  our  artistic  objector  but  weary  the  world 
sufficiently  with  his  despair  concerning  the  permanence  of  the 
cheerlessness  of  modern  realism,  and  some  day  a  man  w^ill 
arise  who  will  give  us  a  study  of  human  happiness  as  fine,  as 
vital  as  anything  we  owe  to  Guy  de  Maupassant  or  to  Ibsen. 
That  man  will  have  accomplished  the  infinitely  difficult,  and 
in  admiration  and  in  awe  shall  we  bow  down  our  heads  be- 
fore him."  And  this  youthful  and  accomplished  realist  was 
arrogant  enough  on  the  one  hand  to  admit  that  fiction  was  a 
young  art  ''  struggling  desperately  to  reach  expression,  with 
no  great  past  to  guide  it,"  and  humble  enough,  on  the  other, 
to  admit  that  it  was  matter  for  wonder,  not  that  the  new 
school  stumbled  into  certain  pitfalls,  but  that  they  did  not 
fall  headlong  into  a  hundred  more. 

But  what  may  be  called  the  artistic  defence  was  not  the 


I 


THE  NEW  FICTION  221 

only  bulwark  against  the  attack  of  the  old  school.     Fresh 
defences  were  found  necessary  owing  to  the  nervousness  of 
moralists  who,  weary  of  decrying  the  artistic  value  of  real- 
ism, attacked  it  on  ethical  and  even  pathological  lines.     The 
new  fiction,  it  was  said,  was  calculated  to  undermine  mor- 
ality not  only  because  it  was  inmioral,  but  because  it  was 
"morbid,"  "neurotic,"  and  "  diseased."    Havelock  Ellis  de- 
fended Thomas  Hardy's  Jude  the  Obscure  against  this  line  of 
attack,  in  The  Savoy  ;   and,  in  that  article,  he  took  the  war 
into  the  enemy's  camp  by  saying  that,  the  more  exact  an 
artist's  powers  of  observation  became,  the  more  vital  and 
profound   became   his   art  as   an  instrmnent  of   morality. 
"The  fresher  and  more  intimate  his  vision  of  Nature,  the 
more  startling  his  picture  of  morals."    And  in  defence  of 
Hardy's  treatment  of  the  passionate  experiences  of  Jude 
and  Sue  against  the  charge  of  neurosis,  he  says  :   "  Jude  and 
Sue  are  represented  as  crushed  by  a  civilisation  to  which  they 
were  not  born,  and  though  civilisation  may  in  some  respects 
be  regarded  as  a  disease  and  unnatural,  in  others  it  may  be 
said  to  bring  out  those  finer  vibrations  of  Nature  w^hich  are 
overlaid  by  rough  and  bucolic  conditions  of  life.     The  refine- 
ment of  sexual  sensibility  with  which  this  book  largely  deals 
is  precisely  such  a  vibration.     To  treat  Jude,  who  wavers 
between  two  w  omen,  and  Sue,  who  finds  the  laws  of  marriage 
too  mighty  for   her  lightly  poised   organism,   as   shocking 
monstrosities,  reveals  a  curious  attitude  in  the  critics  who 
have  committed  themselves  to  that  view.     Clearly  they  con- 
sider human  sexual  relationships  to  be  as  simple  as  those  of 
the  farmyard.     They  are  as  shocked  as  a  farmer  would  be  to 
find  that  a  hen  had  views  of  her  own  concerning  the  lord  of 
the  harem.     If,  let  us  say,  you  decide  that  Indian  Game  and 
Plymouth  Rock  make  a  good  cross,  you  put  your  cocks  and 
hens  together,  and  the  matter  is  settled,  and  if  you  decide 
that  a  man  and  a  woman  are  in  love  with  each  other,  you 
marry  them  and  the  matter  is  likewise  settled  for  the  whole 
term  of  their  natural  lives.     I  suppose  that  the  farmyard 
view  is  really  the  view  of  the  ordinary  wholesome-minded 
novelist — I  mean  of  course  in  England — and  of  his  ordinary 


222  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

critic.  Indeed,  in  Europe  generally,  a  distinguished  German 
anthropologist  has  lately  declared,  sensible  and  experienced 
men  still  often  exhibit  a  knowledge  of  sexual  matters  such  as 
we  might  expect  from  a  milkmaid.  But  assuredly  the  farm- 
yard view  corresponds  imperfectly  to  the  facts  of  human  life 
in  our  time.  Such  things  as  Jiide  is  made  of  are,  in  our  time 
at  all  events,  life,  and  life  is  still  worthy  of  her  muse." 

And  Vincent  O 'Sullivan,  a  modern  of  the  moderns,  in  a 
plea  which  made  hash  of  the  old  sentimental  library  novel, 
\\Tote  :  "  It  is  more  easy — if  more  degrading — to  write  a 
certain  kind  of  novel.  To  take  a  fanciful  instance,  it  is  more 
easy  to  write  the  history  of  Miss  Perfect ;  how,  upon  the 
death  of  her  parents,  she  comes  to  reside  in  the  village,  and 
lives  there  mildly  and  sedately  ;  and  how  one  day,  in  the 
course  of  her  walk  abroad,  she  is  noticed  by  the  squire's  lady, 
who  straightway  transports  her  to  the  Hall.  And,  of  course, 
she  soon  becomes  mighty  well  with  the  family,  and  the 
squire's  son  becomes  enamoured  of  her.  Then  the  clouds 
must  gather  :  and  a  villain  lord  comes  on  the  scene  to  bom- 
bard her  virtue  with  clumsy  artillery.  Finding  after  months 
that  her  virtue  dwells  in  an  impregnable  citadel,  he  turns  to, 
and  jibes  and  goads  the  young  squire  to  the  fighting  point. 
And,  presto  !  there  they  are,  hard  at  it  with  bare  steel,  on 
the  Norman  beach,  of  a  drizzling  morning  ;  and  the  squire 
who  is  just  pressing  hot  upon  my  lord,  when — it's  hey  !  for 
the  old  love  and  ho  !  for  the  new — out  rushes  Miss  Perfect 
to  our  great  amazement,  and  falls  between  the  swords  down 
on  the  stinging  sands  in  the  sight  of  the  toiling  sea.  Now  I 
maintain,  that  a  novel  woven  of  these  meagre  threads,  and 
set  out  in  three  volumes  and  a  brave  binding,  would  put  up 
a  good  front  at  Mudie's  ;  would  become,  it  too,  after  a  while, 
morality  packed  in  a  box.  For  nowadays  we  seem  to 
nom'ish  our  morals  with  the  thinnest  milk  and  water,  with  a 
good  dose  of  sugar  added,  and  not  a  suspicion  of  lemon  at 
all."  The  need  of  such  a  plea  for  frank  record  of  personal 
impression,  even  though  it  led  writers  to  "  go  out  in  the 
black  night  and  follow  their  own  sullen  will-o'-the-wisps,"  is 
all  the  more  remarkable  because  it  came  at  a  time  when 


THE  NEW  FICTION  223 

realism  had  fought  the  good  fight  and  was  near  upon 
winning. 

It  is  not  necessary  at  this  date  to  defend  the  reahsm  of  the 
Nineties,  for  franknesses  then  considered  shocking  are  now 
accepted  as  commonplaces  of  fiction.  That  does  not  mean 
that  the  merely  silly  novel  of  shallow  romance  has  passed 
away  ;  not  even  the  Eighteen  Nineties  could  bring  about  so 
complete  a  revolution  as  that.  But  it  does  mean  that,  since 
the  fin  de  siecle  battle  was  fought  between  reticence  and 
frankness,  the  bounds  of  literary  expression  have  been  so 
broadened  as  to  make  it  possible  for  readers  of  all  types, 
even  those  who  can  survive  a  considerable  demand  upon 
their  thinking  powers,  to  find  fiction  to  suit  their  needs. 
The  popular  novel  of  the  past,  and  to  some  extent  of  the 
present,  ended  more  or  less  happily  with  the  sound  of 
wedding  bells.  The  new  novel  very  often  began  there.  It 
was  realised  by  the  modern  school  of  novelists  that  married 
life  provided  a  whole  realm  of  sensations  and  experiences 
hitherto  neglected  by  their  art  or  but  partially  exploited. 
Into  this  realm  they  plunged  with  enthusiasm,  and  so  dis- 
tinct were  the  results,  when  put  into  the  form  of  fiction, 
that  readers  who  had  been  familiar  with  them  in  real  life 
were  so  amazed  with  this  revelation  of  truth  that,  almost  in 
self-defence,  they  were  forced  to  conclude  that  the  new  fiction 
was  scandalous  when  it  was  not  morbid. 

But  although  realistic  and  introspective  fiction  was  the 
chief  contribution  of  the  period  to  this  form  of  literary  art, 
all  kinds  of  fiction  seemed  to  receive  an  impetus,  which  re- 
sulted in  a  general  improvement  in  style,  imagination  and 
thoughtfulness.  The  influence  of  Meredith,  Hardy  and,  to 
a  lesser  extent,  Henry  James  was  apparent  in  much  of  the 
work  of  the  younger  writers  ;  whilst  French  fiction  writers, 
such  as  Flaubert,  Huysmans  and  Guy  de  Maupassant,  were 
having  a  profound  effect  upon  other  imaginations.  The 
realistic  school  produced  George  Moore,  Hubert  Crackan- 
thorpe,  Arthur  Morrison,  George  Gissing,  as  more  or  less 
acknowledged  disciples,  and  it  influenced  the  birth  of  occa- 
sional novels  from  writers  who  were  not  definitely  realistic, 


224  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

or  specifically  novelists,  but  who  were  impelled  by  the 
mood  of  the  moment  to  produce  works  in  key  with  the 
realistic  mood.  Among  such  novels  may  be  named  The 
Woman  Who  Did,  by  Grant  Allen,  No.  o  John  Street,  by 
Richard  ^Vhiteing,  and  Liza  of  Lambeth,  by  Somerset  Maug- 
ham. Another  important  contribution  to  the  fiction  of  the 
period  was  made  by  a  group  of  women  novelists  who  showed 
remarkable  powers  of  psychological  analysis  and  observa- 
tion, and  in  several  instances  the  faculty  of  expressing  that 
modern  revolt  of  women  which  found  a  voice  in  Olive 
Scln'ciner's  Storij  of  an  African  Farm  (1881).  Among  these 
writers  were  Sarah  Grand,  "  George  Egerton  "  (Mrs  Golding 
Bright),  ''John  Ohver  Hobbes  "  (Mrs  Craigie),  "Iota" 
(Mrs  Mannington  Caffyn),  Mrs  W.  K.  Clifford,  Menie  Muriel 
Dowie,  Emma  Frances  Brooke,  Beatrice  Harradcn  and 
Elizabeth  Robins.  Mrs  Humphry  Ward  must  also  be 
reckoned  among  the  women  novelists  of  the  period,  although 
she,  as  I  have  noted  in  an  earher  chapter,  had  an  estab- 
lished reputation  as  the  author  of  Robert  Ehmere,  written  in 
1888.  Equally  characteristic  of  the  period  were  the  writers 
of  comedy-fiction.  Some  of  the  early  novels  of  H.  G.  Wells, 
such  as  The  Wonderful  Visit  (1895),  and  The  Wheels  of  Chance 
(1896),  are  in  this  class,  as  are  also  the  witty  works  of  John 
Oliver  Hobbes,  particularly  The  Sinner's  Comedy  (1892),  A 
Study  in  Temptations  (1893)  and  The  School  for  Saints  (1897). 
But  the  most  characteristic  writers  of  comedy-fiction  were : 
Henry  Ilarland,  E.  F.  Benson,  G.  S.  Street  and  Frederick 
Wedmore. 

It  was  during  the  Nineties  also  that  the  use  of  dialect  in 
fiction  delighted  an  ever-growing  numl)cr  of  novel  readers. 
First  among  writers  in  this  manner  stands  J.  M.  Barrie, 
whose  studies  in  Scottish  life  were  a  revelation  and  a  delight 
to  a  vast  number  of  people  on  both  sides  of  the  Tweed,  and 
elsewhere.  The  first  of  these,  Auld  Licht  Idylls  and  A  Window 
in  Thrums,  were  published  respectively  in  1888  and  1889. 
Then  followed  The  Little  Minister,  in  1891,  and  Sentimental 
Tommy  and  Margaret  Ogilvy,  in  1896.  Inspired  by  the 
success  of  these  works,  S.  R.  Crockett  produced  many  Scottish 


THE  NEW  FICTION  225 

studies,  beginning  with  l^hc  Stickit  Minister,  in  1893,  and  "  Ian 
Maclaren  "  published  the  phenomenally  successful  Beside  the 
Bonnie  Brier  Bush,  in  1894.  Jane  Barlow  did  something  of 
the  same  service  for  Ireland  in  her  Bogland  Studies  (1892) ; 
and  the  discovery  by  novelists  of  the  value  of  local  colour 
doubtless  made  for  the  success  of  Israel  Zangwill's  fine 
studies  of  Jewish  life,  Children  of  the  Ghetto  (1892),  Ghetto 
Tragedies  (1893),  and  The  King  of  the  Schnorrers  (1894) ;  and 
also  to  the  same  interest  must  be  attributed  the  revival 
of  the  Cockney  dialect  in  fiction,  set  to  a  tragic  theme  by 
realists  like  Arthur  IMorrison  and  Somerset  Maugham,  but 
given  a  delightfully  humorous  turn  by  Ban-y  Pain,  Pett  Ridge 
and  Edwin  Pugh. 

Romantic  fiction  once  more  became  distinguished  during 
the  period,  and  in  some  of  its  finest  results  it  owed  its  renais- 
sance to  Science  wliich,  almost  a  centiu*y  before,  Keats  had 
said  would  clip  the  wings  of  Romance.     This  new  romance 
produced  two  of  the  most  gifted  of  modern  writers  :  Rudyard 
Kipling  and  H,  G.  Wells.     The  first  of  that  series  of  scientific 
romances  which  has  made  the  name  of  H.  G.  Wells  famous 
throughout  the  world.  The  Time  Machine,  was  published  in 
1895,  and  in  1898  and  1899  lie  pubUshed  The  War  of  the  Worlds 
and  When  the  Sleeper  Wakes.     But  the  spirit  of  romance  not 
only  breathed  life  into  the  facts  of  science  ;  once  more  taking 
its  cue  from  the  realists  it  revivified  the  spirit  of  adventure  in 
the  modern  world.     Robert  Louis  Stevenson  had  shown  the 
way,  and  during  the  Nineties  he  was  writing  in  collaboration 
with  his  son-in-law,  Lloyd  Osbourne,  tales,  like  The  Wrecker 
and  Tlie  Ebb  Tide,  which  made  the  old  feel  young  again  and 
the  young  desii-e  to  live  more  ad\'enturously.     But  in  the  year 
1895  came  a  new  master  with  a  book  called  Ahnayefs  Folly. 
He  was  a  sailor  by  profession,  a  Pole  by  birth,  but  he  wrote  in 
English,  a  strange,  strong  and  aiTcsting  English,  and  his  name 
was  Joseph  Conrad.     In  1896  he  pubUshed  An  Outcast  of  the 
Islands,  and  in  the  two  succeeding  years  The  Nigger  of  the 
Narcisms  and  Tales  of  Unrest.     Conrad  was  not  alone  in  his 
mastery  of  the  art  of  turning  experience  into  romance,  for 
with  him  were  Louis  Becke,  Frank  T,  Bullen,  IMorley  Roberts, 


226  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

R.  B.  Cunninghanie  Graham,  Henry  Seton  Memman  and 
Frank  Harris,  all  of  whom  published  their  earliest  books 
during  the  decade.  The  old  romance  found  a  new  and  subtle 
exponent  in  Maurice  Hewlett,  for  Tiw  Forest  Lovers  was 
issued  in  1898,  Little  Novels  from  Italy  in  1899,  and  RicJuird 
Yea  and  Nay  in  1900,  whilst  in  such  writers  as  Conan  Doyle, 
who  published  The  White  Company  in  1891,  Sherlock  Hohnes 
in  1892,  and  Rodney  Stone  in  1896  ;  Anthony  Hope,  who 
published  The  Prisoner  of  Zenda  in  1894  ;  Stanle}'  J.  VVey- 
man,  E.  W.  Hornung  and  Quiller  Couch,  popular  romance 
found  inspired  representatives.  Even  the  romance  of 
powerful  and  widespread  human  interest  rose  again  into  dis- 
tinction with  Hall  Caine,  whose  best  works,  if  The  Deemster, 
published  m  1887,  be  excepted,  appeared  during  these 
extraordinarily  productive  years.  And  the  name  of  Marie 
Corelli  became  still  further  associated  with  that  species  of 
sensationalism  which  she  had  already  made  her  own. 

So  active  was  the  romantic  spu'it  of  the  period  that  it  did  not 
scruple  about  using  many  mediums  for  its  purpose,  liitherto 
neglected.  Thus  ideas  both  spiritual  and  intellectual  were 
pressed  into  its  service,  the  former  finding  striking  expression 
in  Harold  Frederic's  Illumination  (1896),  and  in  the  Celtic 
romances  of  "  Fiona  Macleod  "  ;  and  the  latter  in  the  book- 
ish but  always  charming  romances  of  Richard  Le  Gallienne. 
Type  of  his  period,  Le  Gallienne  infused  into  the  old  form  of 
the  Picaresque  romance  a  great  deal  of  the  buoyant  gaiety  of 
the  time  as  it  inspired  young  people  to  prance  about  among 
books,  ideas,  conventions  and  dreams.  In  The  Book  Bills  of 
Narcissus  (1891)  he  has  caught  tliis  joyous  intellectuality  in 
full  flight,  with  all  its  hopes  and  enthusiasms ;  and  later, 
when  he,  gi'eatly  daring,  ventm-ed  into  the  realm  of  Laurence 
Sterne  with  a  new  Sentimental  Journey,  called  The  Quest  of  tJte 
Golden  Girl  (1896).  The  result  was  interesting,  for  with  deli- 
cate indelicacy  he  translated  the  emotional  unrest  of  the  hour 
into  a  fancifully  impossible  romance  wliich  future  generations 
will  read  for  delight  or  for  a  truthful,  though  not  mipartial, 
picture  of  a  certain  corner  of  the  age.  In  1895  George  du 
Maurier  revived,  in  Trilby,  the  romance  of  Bohemianism  as 


THE  NEW  FICTION  227 

discovered  by  Henri  ISIurger,  and  Arthur  Machen,  in  The  Great 
God  Pan  (1894),  took  romance  once  more  into  the  abode  of 
terror  in  a  manner  as  startling  as  it  was  elementally  true.  It 
is  not  unnatiu*al  to  find  that  a  period  so  bent  on  discovering — 
or  rediscovering — romance  in  many  things  and  experiences 
did  not  overlook  the  romance  of  childhood.  This  enchanted 
land  had  been  discovered,  as  we  know,  by  Le^vis  Carroll  and 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  but  a  new  realm  was  explored  with 
happy  results  by  Kenneth  Grahame,  who  with  llw  Golden 
Age  (]896)  and  Dream  Days  (1898)  created  a  new  delight 
by  introducing  us  into  a  delectable  kingdom  whose  existence 
we  had  only  imagined. 

Last  in  this  long  gallery  of  writers  of  fiction,  but  none  the 
less  valued  on  that  account,  came  the  humorists.  Although 
H.  D.  Traill  was  convdnced  that  "The  New  Humour  "  turned 
out  to  be  simply  the  Old  Buffoonery  "  writ  small,"  there  was 
a  New  Humour  which,  in  the  amusing  tales  of  Jerome  K. 
Jerome,  \V.  \V.  Jacobs,  Israel  Zangwill,  J.  i\L  Barrie,  Pett 
Ridge  and  Barry  Pain,  was  as  much  a  characteristic  of  the 
Nineties  as  the  problem  novel.  For  it  certainly  made  a 
departure  from  tradition,  although  the  laughter  it  raised  was 
the  same  as  all  laughter — of  Elternity  rather  than  of  Time. 
It  probably  differed  from  the  old  humom*  in  that  it  was  more 
self-conscious  and  less  capable  of  laughing  at  itself.  The 
New  Humour  when  it  was  new  was  perhaps  a  little  inhuman, 
and  it  reached  its  highest  expression  not  in  any  of  the  works 
deliberately  written  with  an  eye  on  laughter,  but  in  works 
like  the  plays  of  Bernard  Shaw,  which  provoked  laughter 
out  of  more  serious  business. 

The  novels  and  stories  of  the  period,  however,  did  not 
revolutionise  so  much  as  extend  established  methods. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  point  to  another  decade  in  which 
Enghsh  literature  produced  so  many  varieties  of  fiction, 
possessing  the  attractions  of  novelty  or  artistic  distinction, 
or  both.  These  works  have  at  least  one  thing  in  common : 
they  all  represent  more  than  ordinary  ability  within  their 
own  spheres.  Some  of  them  are  now  admitted  to  the  first 
class  of  English  fiction.     And  so  balanced  is  the  expression 


228  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

of  the  majority  that  the}'  can  be  said  to  stand  for  many 
generations  rather  than  for  a  special  period.  Few  of  these 
works  are  pccuhar  to  their  period  after  the  manner  of  much 
of  the  poetry  written  in  the  decade.  Oscar  Wilde's  Dorian 
Gray,  Richard  Le  Gallienne's  Quest  of  the  Golden  Girl  and 
Aubrey  Beardsley's  Under  the  Hill  have  each  of  them  charac- 
teristics which  would  have  made  their  appearance  irrelevant 
before  or  after  the  decade  in  which  they  were  published,  and 
so,  for  the  same  reason,  have  the  satires  upon  those  authors 
and  their  works  :  The  Green  Carnation.  The  Auiobiogra'phy  of 
a  Boy  and  The  Quest  of  the  Gilt-Edged  Girl.  But  for  the  rest, 
novelties  of  thought  and  utterance  are  sufficiently  balanced 
by  normal  vision  to  defy  many  trespassing  years  to  come. 
In  the  main,  the  best  fiction  of  the  decade  achieved  that 
thoughtfulness  and  that  freedom  of  expression  for  w'hich 
the  upholders  of  the  higher  drama  were  still  fighting.  The 
native-born  realistic  play  had  yet  to  come,  and  its  arrival 
was  still  a  matter  of  anticipation  and  conjecture.  But  the 
realistic  novel  came  complete  with  Esther  Waters  and  Jude 
the  Obscure. 

Nothing  essentially  English  was  added  to  the  novel  as  such. 
What  was  new  was  the  result  of  outside  influence.  But  in  a 
less  popular  form  of  fiction,  the  short  story,  a  mastery  was 
achieved  liitherto  unknown  in  this  countiy.  So  successful  a 
contributor  to  this  class  of  fiction  as  H.  G.  Wells  has  referred  ^ 
to  the  short-story  harv^est  of  the  Nineties,  in  comparison  with 
a  later  decade,  in  the  following  terms  : 

"  The  Nineties  was  a  good  and  stimulating  period  for  a 
short-story  writer.  Mr  Kipling  had  made  his  astonishing 
advent  with  a  series  of  little  blue-grey  books,  whose  covers 
opened  like  window-shutters  to  reveal  the  dusty  sun-glare 
and  blazing  colours  of  the  East ;  Mx  Barrie  had  demonstrated 
what  could  be  done  in  a  little  space  thi'ough  the  panes  of 
his  Window  in  Thrums.  The  National  Observer  was  at  tlic 
climax  of  its  career  of  heroic  insistence  upon  lyrical  brevity 
and  a  vivid  finish,  and  Mr  Frank  Harris  was  not  only  printing 
good  short  stories  by  other  people,  but  WTiting  still  better  ones 
*  The  Country  oj  the  Blind  and  Other  Stories,  by  H.  G.  Wells  (1912). 


THE  NEW  FICTION  229 

himself  in  the  dignified  pages  oi"  The  Fortnightly  Kevieiv. 
Longmans^  Magazine,  too,  represented  a  clientele  of  apprecia- 
tive short-story  readers  that  is  now  scattered.  Then  came 
the  generous  opportunities  of  TJie  Yelloiv  Book,  and  The 
National  Observer  died  only  to  give  birth  to  2'he  New  lievieiv. 
No  short  story  of  the  slightest  distinction  went  for  long 
unrecognised.  The  sixpenny  popular  magazines  had  still  to 
deaden  down  the  conception  of  what  a  short  story  might  he 
to  the  imaginative  limitation  of  the  common  reader — and  a 
maximum  length  of  six  thousand  words.  Short  stories  broke 
out  everywhere.  Kiphng  was  writing  short  stories  ;  Barrie, 
Stevenson,  Frank  Harris  ;  Max  Beerbohm  wrote  at  least  one 
perfect  one,  The  Hapjjy  Hypocrite ;  Henry  James  pursued 
his  wonderful  and  inimitable  bent ;  and  among  other  names 
that  occur  to  me,  like  a  mixed  handful  of  jewels  drawn  from  a 
Ijag,  are  George  Street,  Morley  Roberts,  George  Gissing,  Ella 
D'Arcy,  Murray  Gilchrist,  E.  Nesbit,  Stephen  Crane,  Joseph 
Conrad,  Edwin  Pugh,  Jerome  K.  Jerome,  Kenneth  Grahame, 
Arthur  Morrison,  Marriott  ^Vatson,  George  Moore,  Grant 
Allen,  George  Egerton,  Henr}^  Harland,  Pett  Ridge,  W.  \V. 
Jacobs  (who  alone  seems  inexhaustible).  ...  I  do  not  think 
the  present  decade  can  produce  any  parallel  to  this  list,  or 
what  is  more  remarkable,  that  the  later  achievements  in  this 
field  of  any  of  the  survivors  from  that  time,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  Joseph  Conrad,  can  compare  with  the  work 
they  did  before  1900.  It  seems  to  me  this  outburst  of  short 
stories  came  not  only  as  a  phase  in  literary  development,  but 
also  as  a  phase  in  the  development  of  the  individual  writers 
concerned." 

In  both  the  novel  and  the  short  story  the  sane  tradition  of 
English  fiction  bj'  which  a  delicate  balance  was  maintained 
between  realism  and  romance  rarely  broke  down.  Even  the 
traditional  sentimentalism  of  the  English  novel  was  main- 
tained for  those  who  continued  to  desire  it.  However,  the 
modernists  who  were  caught  in  the  impulsion  towards  French 
realism  soon  saw  the  insufficiency  of  the  most  carefully 
observed  facts  unless  they  were  clothed  with  the  stuff  of  the 
imagination  and  the  soul.     What  happened  to  George  Moore 


230  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

may  be  taken  as  symbolical  of  the  return  to  romance.  In 
one  masterpiece,  Esther  Waters,  he  gave  us  reality  with  a 
frankness  hitherto  unknown  in  this  country.  He  wrote  a 
novel  in  which  he  revealed  the  pilgrimage  of  a  human  being 
as  a  physical  entity.  That  was  very  well  in  its  way,  especially 
when  that  way  was  the  way  of  a  master.  But  when  he  came 
to  write  Evelyn  Innes  he  WTote  the  epic  of  a  soul's  pilgrimage 
with  all  his  experience  as  a  realist  ready  to  his  hand.  In 
that  novel  romanticism  and  realism  met,  co-ordinating 
much  that  was  tentative  and  whimsical  in  the  period  in  one 
finished  and  enduring  work  of  art. 


I 


CHAPTER  XVII 

RUDYARD   KIPLING 

IN  the  year  1890  people  in  this  country  were  beginning 
to  tell  each  other  about,  and  to  ask  each  other  about, 
a  young  Anglo-Indian  storyteller  whose  works  were  to 
be  found  in  a  series  of  pamphlets  published  by  Messrs  A.  H. 
Wheeler  &  Co.,  of  Allahabad,  in  "  The  Indian  Railway 
Library."  On  inquiry  also  it  was  discovered  that  this  same 
storyteller  was  the  son  of  an  Anglo-Indian  official,  and  that 
he  himself  was  engaged  in  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  that  he 
had  become  the  laureate  of  Governmental  circles,  and  that 
his  clever  verses  had  been  collected  in  a  volume  called 
Departmental  Ditties.  The  demand  to  know  more  about  this 
remarkable  young  man  grew  until  it  was  found  necessary  to 
publish  his  stories  in  England. 

It  was  in  the  year  1890  that  the  short  stories  of  Rudyard 
Kipling  became  accessible  to  English  readers  through  the 
normal  channels  of  publication.  Thus  came  to  us,  bring- 
ing with  them  the  scent  and  heat,  the  colom*  and  passion  of 
the  East  in  all  its  splendours  and  seductiveness,  the  now 
world-famous  series  of  short  stories,  beginning  with  Plain 
Tales  fram  the  Hills,  in  which  we  were  introduced  to  the 
vitriolic  Mrs  Hawksbee,  and  Soldiers  Three,  with  Privates 
Stanley  Ortheris,  John  Learoyd  and  the  immortal  Terence 
Mulvaney.  These  people  immediately  entered  into  our  con- 
sciousness, taking  their  place  beside  the  great  comic  figures 
of  fiction,  those  characters  whom  we  all  know  so  much  better 
than  many  people  we  meet  in  real  life.  Of  a  sudden  we  found 
ourselves  enjoying  a  largess  of  short  stories  such  as  the 
English  language  had  not  knov^n  before.  The  mere  recital 
of  the  titles  of  the  little  genius-laden  volumes  issued  during 
that  year  recalls  artistic  experiences  little  short  of  thrilling — 
The  Story  of  the  GadsJtys,  In  Black  and  White,  Under  the 
23T 


232  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Deodars,  The  Pliantom  'Rickshaw,  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  The 
Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd  and  The  City  of  Dreadful  Night. 
Then  came  a  long  story,  The  Light  that  Failed,  and  we  realised 
that  this  new  ^^Titer  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  novelist 
as  well  as  a  great  storyteller ;  a  promise,  however,  not  yet 
achieved.  But  none  who  read  the  Dejmrtmental  Ditties 
could  have  foretold  a  poet,  although  the  appearance  in  the 
Press  of  occasional  verses  over  the  name  of  Kipling  was 
beginning  to  make  us  realise  that  very  shortly  it  would  be 
necessary  to  consider  some  of  the  new  author's  metrical 
work  in  the  light  of  poetry  ;  and  when,  in  1892,  a  volume 
called  Barrack  Room  Ballads  and  Other  Verses  made  its 
appearance  it  was  as  though  a  bombshell  had  burst  among 
the  seats  of  literary  judgment,  and,  amidst  stimulating 
shouts  of  approval,  academic  criticism  was  faced  Avith  the 
necessity  of  revising  its  idea  of  poetry,  and  ultimately  of 
making  room  for  a  new  poet. 

The  versatiUty  of  Rudyard  Kipling  did  not  end  there. 
He  proved  with  such  books  as  Many  Inventions  (1893),  The 
Jungle  Book  (1894),  The  Second  Jungle  Book  (1895),  The 
Seven  Seas  (1896),  Captains  Courageous  (1897),  The  Day's 
Work  (1898),  Stalky  &  Co.  (1899),  and  a  novel,  The  Naulahka 
(1892),  M^ritten  in  conjimction  with  Wolcot  Balestier,  that 
he  could  enter  into  the  minds  of  sailors  and  schoolboys  and 
animals,  besides  giving  something  very  like  consciousness 
to  machines,  with  as  much  facility  as  he  could  enter  into 
the  minds  of  soldiers,  Hindoos,  and  the  members  of  Anglo- 
Indian  Society.  Nor  did  his  surprising  genius  and  versa- 
tility stop  there,  for  with  Kim  (1901)  he  has  given  us  a  prose 
epic  of  Indian  life,  and  with  the  Just-So  Stories  for  Little 
Children  (1902)  he  has  entered  into  the  wonder  spirit  of  child- 
hood, just  as  in  Puck  of  Book's  Hill  (190G),  and  those  remark- 
able short  stories  "The  Brushwood  Boy,"  "They,"  and  the 
"  Finest  Story  in  the  World,"  lie  has  proved  that  his  genius 
is  equally  at  home  in  the  realm  of  fancy  and  on  the  border- 
land of  human  experience. 

Everybody  felt  that  a  new  force  in  a  double  sense  had  come 
into  literature.     It  was  a  new  voice,  a  new  accent,  in  many 


Rl'dvard  Kh'Lim; 

Bv  Willi  am  Nicholson 


i 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  233 

ways  a  new  language,  and  in  every  way  forceful  even  to 
creating  an  atmosphere  of  physical  violence.  Rudyard 
Kipling  was  a  realist  with  a  difference.  lie  had  no  ante- 
cedents. The  critics  found  it  impossible  to  locate  him,  even 
when  they  admitted  that  he  had  earned  a  definite  place  in 
the  hierarchy  of  art.  They  felt  without  admitting  it,  and 
showed  without  intending  it,  that  they  were,  to  use  that 
language  of  the  street  which  Kipling  turned  into  literature, 
up  against  a  new  game.  There  was  over-praise  and  half- 
praise,  as  well  as  right-do^vn  opposition ;  in  short,  all  the 
phenomena  of  tlic  arrival  of  undoubted  genius.  Even  those 
in  the  vanguard  of  the  new  movement  were  lost  when  they 
came  to  consider  his  work,  for  as  he  had  no  antecedents, 
so  he  belonged  to  no  definite  movement,  neither  did  he 
frequent,  even  when  he  came  to  live  in  England,  the  places 
where  hterary  men  congregate. 

Yet,  as  we  can  see  now,  he  was  a  bigger  figure  in  the  vital 
modernist  movement  of  the  Nineties  than  many  who  were 
fonder  of  using  labels  to  define  their  position.  His  was  a 
definite  expression  of  the  modern  movement  towards  the 
revaluation  of  ideas  and  life  ;  and,  althougli  his  temperament 
was  essentially  conservative,  his  interpretation  of  what  finally 
is  a  traditional  view  of  life  was  so  fresh  and  personal  that 
it  created  the  illusion  of  a  revolution.  He  reasserted  the 
claims  of  virility  and  actuality,  and,  if  you  like,  of  vidgarity 
— that  underlying  grossness  of  life  which  is  Nature's  safe- 
guard. In  that  respect  Kipling  might  well  be  considered  a 
realist.  But  his  realism  never,  as  in  the  case  of  the  French 
realists,  looked  upon  mere  frankness  as  an  end  in  itself.  He 
was  never  a  realist  for  realism's  sake :  he  faced  facts  only 
because  he  recognised  in  them  the  essentials  of  romance. 
When  he  told  a  story  it  was  not  the  outcome  of  any  notion 
about  being  an  artist,  it  was  the  outcome  of  the  oldest  of 
literary  traditions,  the  desire  of  one  man  to  tell  another  what 
he  has  seen,  heard  or  experienced,  and  to  tell  it  in  the  most 
effective  way.  His  stories,  therefore,  read  like  the  verbatim 
reports  of  the  achievements  of  a  gifted  raconteur  in  club  or 
smoking-room,  or  any  other  place  where  men  swap  yarns  ; 


234  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

and  these  stories  are  equally  masculine.  They  bring  the 
modern  clubroom  into  literature. 

His  poems  sing  the  song  of  ordinary  healthy  manhood  in 
much  the  same  way  as  folk-songs  sang  the  life  of  the  folk,  or, 
better,  as  soldier  songs,  student  songs  or  sailor  chanties  tell 
the  desires,  whims  and  gossip  of  men  who  are  thrown  together 
by  common  circumstances.  You  feel  all  the  while  that  the 
love  of  the  masculine  life  which  is  the  keynote  of  Tlie  Light 
That  Failed  is  the  underlying  and  impelhng  influence  of 
Kipling's  attitude.  Whilst  Bernard  Shaw  was  using  Ibsen 
to  decry  the  fixed  ideals  of  "the  manly  man  "  and  "the 
womanly  woman,"  Rudyard  Kipling  was  interpreting  a  new 
vision  of  the  manly  man  in  some  of  the  most  masculine  poems 
that  have  ever  been  written,  wherein  every  reference  to 
woman  bears  the  stamp  of  the  oldest  attitude  of  manliness 
towards  womanliness.  And  in  this  respect  Kipling  was 
nearer  the  most  modern  philosophy  of  the  time,  that  of 
Nietzsche,  than  Bernard  Shaw.  He  was  no  believer  in  the 
equality  of  the  sexes  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  pugnacious  phil- 
osophy of  Kipling,  with  its  insistence  upon  clean  health  and 
a  courageous  and  dangerous  life  would  make  men  more  like 
men  and  women  more  like  women. 

Rudyard  Kipling  was  undeniably  a  protest  also  against 
the  artistic  intellectualism  of  the  time,  with  its  tendenc}^  to 
enclose  life  in  the  conservatory  of  culture ;  and  he  was  all 
the  more  effective  as  he  used  his  protagonists'  favourite 
weapons.  He  knew  what  he  thought  and  said  what  he 
thought  in  his  own  way,  with  as  little  apology  to  precedent 
or  convention  as  the  most  ultra-realist  or  impressionist. 
Everything  he  did  was  impressionist,  and  like  all  the  great 
figures  of  his  period  he  did  not  scruple,  when  occasion  served, 
to  use  art  as  a  means  of  teaching  or  preaching.  He  used  his 
art  to  preach  a  new  imperialistic  patriotism  as  deliberately  as 
Bernard  Shaw  used  art  to  preach  socialism,  or  John  David- 
son that  gospel  of  philosophic  science  to  which  he  devoted 
his  last  energies. 

As  an  artist,  then,  Kipling  won  his  spurs  at  the  outset  by 
wi'iting  a  cycle  of  short  stories  unsurpassed  in  our  literature, 


I 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  235 

and  finding  their  only  parallel  for  bulk  of  output  and  high 
achievement  in  the  stories  of  Guy  de  Maupassant.  But  he 
dilTers  from  the  French  storyteller  in  that  sex  plays  only  a 
secondary  part  in  his  work.  In  a  period  whose  artists  were 
over-engaged  with  the  aspects  and  problems  of  sex,  it  was  a 
virtue  to  show  that  life  had  other  interests  than  the  way  of  a 
man  with  a  maid  ;  and  it  was  no  small  achievement  at  such 
a  time  to  be  able  to  write  stories  on  other  subjects  which 
should  prove  both  stimulating  and  interesting.  It  was  not  as 
though  Rud3^ard  Kipling  were  not  conscious  of  the  problem 
of  sex  ;  he  knew  all  about  it,  but  he  did  not  treat  it  as  a 
problem,  he  recognised  it  as  a  mystery  :  an  inspiration — 
and  a  warning.  And  into  the  poem  called  "  The  Vampire  " 
he  put  his  idea  of  the  tragedy  of  sexual  abandonment : 

"  A  fool  there  was  and  he  made  his  prayer 
(Even  as  you  and  I  !) 
To  a  rag  and  a  bone  and  a  hank  of  hair 
(We  called  her  the  woman  who  did  not  care) 
But  the  fool  he  called  her  his  lady  fair — 
(Even  as  you  and  I  !)  " 

And  one  cannot  help  feehng  that  Rudyard  Kipling  has 
finally  stated,  through  the  medium  of  one  of  his  own  soldiers, 
the  average,  and  perhaps  eternal,  view  of  the  sex  problem, 
with  all  its  cheerful  fatalism,  in  "  The  Ladies  "  : 

"  I've  taken  my  fun  where  I've  found  it, 

An'  now  I  must  pay  for  my  fun, 
For  the  more  you  'ave  known  o'  the  others 

The  less  you  will  settle  to  one  ; 
An'  the  end  of  it's  settin'  and  thinkin' 

An'  dreamin'  Hell-fires  to  see  ; 
So  be  warned  by  my  lot  (which  I  know  you  will  not) 

An'  learn  about  women  from  me.'- 

With  the  concluding  dictum  that — 

"...  the  Colonel's  Lady  an'  Judy  O 'Grady 
Are  sisters  under  their  skins  I  '■'■ 

It  was  one  of  Kipling's  chief  distinctions  to  have  been  able 
to  see  and  feel  romance  without  the  aid  of  antiquity.     He 


236  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

had  no  patience  with  antiquarian  romanticism,  and  he 
satirised  those  who  upheld  the  old  against  the  new  in  "  The 
King,"  giving  the  laments  of  Cave-men  and  Lake-folk  at  the 
changes  which  were  killing  romance  in  their  times,  of  the 
soldier  who  saw  the  death  of  romance  in  the  substitution  of 
tlie  gun  for  the  sword,  and  of  the  sailor  who  saw  romance 
again  disappearing  when  steam  took  the  place  of  sails  ;  and 
he  brings  us  down  to  our  own  times  with  the  modern  season 
ticket-holder  repining  for  the  old  romantic  days  of  the  stage 
coach,  when — 

"  .  .  .  all  unseen 

Romance  brought  up  the  nine-fifteen. 

His  hand  was  on  the  lever  laid, 

His  oil-can  soothed  the  worrying  cranks. 

His  whistle  waked  the  snowbound  grade, 
His  foghorn  cut  the  reeking  banks  ; 

By  dock  and  deep  and  mine  and  mill 

The  Boy-god  reckless  laboured  still  !  " 

And  this  idea  of  romance  he  wove  into  all  his  finest  work. 
He  took  things  as  he  found  them,  the  men  who  worked  at 
manly  crafts  like  soldiering  and  sailoring  and  engine-driving 
and,  later,  aviation,  and  showed  us  how  fearful  and  wonderful 
were  their  days,  turning  what  had  hitherto  been  considered 
a  hundrum  modern  world  into  an  Arabian  Night's  Entertain- 
ment. In  many  a  tale  he  has  made  machinery  speak  as 
eloquently  as  Tommy  Atkins  or  Mowgli,  or  Toomai  of  the 
Elephants.  He  lias  taken  us  out  on  to  the  banks  of  New- 
foundland and  shown  us  the  hardness  and  joyousness  of  the 
cod  fisheries  and  the  way  they  have  in  the  making  of  a  man. 
And  in  the  Jungle  Books  he  has  taken  us  into  the  wild,  and 
woven  a  spell  of  romance  more  fascinating  than  the  romantic 
life  of  men,  and  more  natural  than  natural  history.  When 
he  goes  among  the  machines  one  feels  that  he  loves  them 
as  his  own  "Stiff-necked,  Glasgow  beggar,"  the  engineer 
M'Andrews,  loved  them,  and  that  the  reply  of  the  engineer 
to  the  passenger  who  had  asked  him,  'Don't  you  think 
steam  spoils  romance  at  sea  ?  "  would  be  Kipling's  own 
reply  in  the  same  circumstances,  to  those  who  failed  to  see 
the  romance  of  the  modern  world  : 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  237 

"  Darned  ijit  !   I'd  been  doon  that  morn'  to  see  what  ailed  the  throws, 
Manhohn',  on  my  back — the  cranks  three  inches  ofl  my  nose. 
Romance  !     Those  first-class  passengers  they  like  it  very  well. 
Printed  an'  bound  in  little  books  ;  but  why  don't  poets  tell  .-' 
I'm  sick  of  all  their  quirks  an'  turns — the  loves  an'  doves  they  dream. 
Lord,  send  a  man  like  Robbie  Bums  to  sing  the  Song  o'  Steam  !  "• 


Riidyard  Kipling  did  not  wait,  as  we  have  seen,  for  some- 
one else  to  fulfil  this  demand  of  his  own  creating.  He 
stepped  into  the  breach  himself,  and  if  not  exactly  as  a  new 
Bui-ns  singing  the  song  of  steam,  as  one  who  had  vision 
enough  to  express  that  vision  in  a  language  strong  to  compel 
the  attention  of  his  fellow- men. 

Kipling  was  far  from  inclined  to  rest  after  discovering 
nought  common  on  the  earth.  He  wanted  to  share  this  dis- 
covery with  his  fellow-men  ;  and  he  wanted  his  compatriots 
to  realise  their  obligations  to  an  Empire  which  embraced  so 
much  of  the  good  earth.  Before  him  our  poets  were  insular  ; 
they  had  no  consciousness  of  Empire,  or  when  they  had  they 
associated  the  Empire  with  England.  Kipling  took  the 
opposite  attitude — he  associated  England  with  the  Empire. 
■'  What  do  they  know  of  England  who  only  England  know  ?  " 
he  asked.  And  his  question  came  at  a  moment  when  cir- 
cumstances had  made  a  hitherto  indifferent  people  acutely 
conscious  of  the  world-circling  colonies  their  race  had 
founded.  At  the  Jubilee  of  1887  they  had  been  told  that 
Queen  Victoria  reigned  over  an  Empire  upon  which  the  sun 
never  set.  The  image  had  filled  the  popular  imagination. 
Gladstone's  failm'c  to  settle  the  Soudan,  and  his  more  recent 
attempt  to  give  Ireland  Home  Rule,  thus  creating  an  illusion 
of  Imperial  dismemberment,  had  each  contributed  to  the 
larger  patriotism  of  Empire.  So  when  Kitchener  "  avenged  " 
the  death  of  Gordon,  and  obliterated  the  failures  of  Wolseley 
in  Egypt,  by  defeating  the  Mahdi  at  Omdm-man,  and  re- 
taking Khartoum,  slumbering  Imperialism  awoke  with  a 
strange  and  arrogant  light  in  its  eyes. 

The  spark  which  eventually  set  the  country  ablaze  with 
warlike  patriotism  was  the  Outlander  question  in  the  Trans- 
vaal, following  the  gold  boom  and  the  discovery  of  diamonds 


238  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

in  Soutli  Africa.     The  great  force  in  Cape  Colony  was  Cecil 
Rhodes  ;  he  had  gone  there  in  the  early  Seventies  as  a  young 
man,  consolidated  the  diamond  interests  in  the  De  Beers 
Company,  worked  at  the  early  organisation  of  the  gold  in- 
dustry, settled  the  native  um'cst  in  Matabeleland,  Bechuana- 
land,  Basutoland  and  Mashonaland,  brought  about  unity  of 
purpose  between  British  and  Dutch  in  the  south,  and  founded 
the  British  South  Africa   Company,  which  was  granted  a 
royal  charter  in  1889,  and  whose  vast  reahn  is  now  known  as 
Rhodesia.     Rhodes  was  a  man  of  action  and  a  dreamer,  a 
practical  visionary,  and  from  his  early  days  in  the  colony 
he  dreamt  of  a  United  South  Africa,  with  railway  and  tele- 
graphic communication  from  the  Cape  to  Cairo.     In  1890 
he  became  Prime  Minister  of  Cape  Colony,  and  the  events 
which  followed  this  appointment  were  the  final   causes  of 
that  new  patriotism  of  which  Rudyard  Kipling  became  the 
bard.     Rhodes  had  been  hampered  in  his  schemes  in  the 
north  by  the  national  and  non-progressive  policy  of  Paul 
Kruger,  President  of  the  South  African  Republic,  and  Cape 
Town  politics  eventually  centred  around   the   question  of 
the  enfranchisement  of   British  settlers  in  the   Transvaal. 
Rhodes  found  a  sympathetic  supporter  of  his  ideals  in  this 
country  in  Joseph  Chamberlain,  who  had  joined  the  Marquess 
of  Salisbmy's  ministry  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Colonial 
Affairs  in  1895.     Weary  of  political  negotiations,  the  resi- 
dents  of  Johannesburg  were   becoming  restive,  and   they 
began  arming  themselves  against  Boer  rule  ;  and  a  climax 
was  reached  when,  acting  upon  this  knowledge,  on  the  29th 
December  in  the  same  year,  Dr  Jameson,  the  Administrator 
of  Mashonaland,  invaded  the  Transvaal  with  a  small  body 
of  troops.     He  was  defeated  and  captured,  but  the  romantic 
side  of  the  Jameson  Raid  appealed  to  popular  sentiment  and 
the  new  romance  became  the  new  patriotism.     The  sequel 
to  the  Raid  was  the  Boer  War  (1899-1902),  and  the  realisation 
of  Cecil  Rhodes'  dream  of  a  United  South  Africa  under  the 
British  flag. 

Never  before  had  this  country  been  mixed  up  in  a  great 
issue  which  combined  so  inextricably  the  most  sordid  and 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  239 

the  most  exalted  motives.  Violent  partisanship  rent 
asunder  the  British  people,  and  the  pro-Boer  campaign  led 
by  Lloyd  George  ended  in  riots.  Cecil  Rhodes  became  an 
ogi'e  in  the  eyes  of  the  Peace  Party,  whose  members  also 
looked  upon  Joseph  Chamberlain  as  the  political  instrument 
of  the  ring  of  cosmopolitan  financiers  who  controlled  the 
South  African  mining  industry.  Even  now  it  is  impossible 
to  separate  finance  from  patriotism  in  that  fierce  struggle. 
Two  things,  however,  seem  certain :  firstly,  that  Cecil 
Rhodes  was  not  wholly  inspired  by  sordid  motives,  and  that 
he  used  liis  own  A\ealth  as  much  as  he  used  the  Rand  financiers 
and  British  politicians,  as  instruments  towards  the  realisa- 
tion of  an  Imperial  idea ;  and  secondly,  that  Rudyard 
Kiplmg  as  prophet  and  bard  of  Empire  was  high  above  all 
pettiness,  and  inspired  by  a  genuine  romantic  passion  far 
removed  from  that  jingoism  which  did  nothing  but  add  the 
verb  "  to  maffick  "  to  our  language. 

It  was  easier  to  mistake  the  gospel  of  Kipling,  and  the 
crowd  did  mistake  it,  because  his  most  popular  songs  were 
set  to  a  banjo  melody.  Before  him  bardic  prophets  had 
been  content  with  the  lyre  ;  but  with  fine  insolence  he  re- 
jected that  ancient  instrument,  and  sought  to  inspire  the 
most  conunonplace  of  all  musical  instruments  with  an  ex- 
alted message.  He  saw  in  the  banjo  "  the  war-drum  of  the 
white  man  round  the  world. "  But  not  all  those  who  heard 
and  liked  his  tunes  realised  their  underlying  demand  upon 
character.  They  mistook  his  patriotism  for  jingoism,  and 
he  was  forced  to  pray, 

"  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet — 
Lest  we  forget — lest  we  forget  !  '-'■ 

They  waved  flags  when  he  sang  of  Empire — but  showed 
more  inclination  for  cricket  and  football  than  for  fighting  or 
empire-building  :  and  the  banjo  snapped  out  it*;  derision  of 
''  the  flamielled  fools  at  the  wicket  "  and  "  the  muddied  oafs 
at  the  goal  " — 

■'  Given  to  strong  delusioH,  wholly  believing  a  he, 
Ye  saw  that  the  land  lay  fenceless,  and  ye  let  the  months  go  by 


240  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Waiting  some  easy  ^\■onder  :  hoping  some  saving  sign — 

Idle — openly  idle — in  the  lee  of  the  forespent  Line. 

Idle — except  for  your  boasting — and  what  is  your  boasting  worth 

If  ye  grudge  a  year  of  service  to  the  lordliest  life  on  earth  ?  " 

Obviously  Kipling  and  the  nian-in-the-street,  who  began 
to  become  a  specially  designated  quantity  at  about  this  time, 
were  at  cross-purposes.  There  was  an  austerity  about  his 
demand  which  did  not  appeal  to  what  he  called  ''  a  poor  little 
street-bred  people."  Perhaps  his  song  was  a  little  foreign — 
as  the  Empire  was  a  little  foreign  ;  and  the  masses  were 
hardly  prepared  for  his  fierce  Old  Testament  faith  in  a  God 
of  Battles  and  of  Hosts.  The  people  had  his  conlident  faith 
in  their  race.  The  Jews  in  Egypt  were  not  more  confident 
that  they  were  the  Chosen  People.  But  our  democracy  did 
not  want  to  prove  their  title  ;  they  were  quite  content  to  let 
others  prove  it  for  them  or  to  take  it  on  faith.  Kipling 
narrowed  down  the  Imperial  idea  to  ancient  tribal  propor- 
tions plus  conscription  and  the  modern  ideal  of  efficiency  in 
organisation  : 

"  Keep  ye  the  Law — be  swift  in  all  obedience — 
Clear  the  land  of  evil,  drive  the  road  and  bridge  the  ford. 
Make  ye  sure  to  each  his  own 
That  he  reap  where  he  hath  sown  ; 
By  the  peace  among  Our  peoples  let  men  know  we  serve  the  Lord  !  " 

With  this  love  of  a  modern  and  masterful  people  he 
associated  the  traditions  of  the  race  and  its  achievements 
in  science  and  discovery  and  adventure ;  and  particularly  in 
that  restlessness  which  had  pitted  the  English  against  nature 
and  barbarism  in  the  ends  of  the  earth :  "  there's  never  a 
wave  of  all  her  waves  but  marks  our  English  dead,"  he  sang. 
Not  alone  of  successful  enterprise  of  soldier  or  sailor  does  he 
sing ;  but  he  is  fully  conscious  of  the  pioneer  who  makes 
tracks  into  the  unknown  without  reward,  favour  or  success  ; 

the 

"...  legion  that  never  was  'listed. 
That  carries  no  colour  or  crest. 
But  split  in  a  thousand  detachments. 
Is  breaking  the  way  for  the  rest." 


I 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  241 

And  his  romanticism  naturally  takes  under  its  wing  the 
spirit  of  youth  in  its  hunger  for  life  ;  he  loves  all  who  respond 
to  the  call  of  the  Red  Gods  and  who  dare  to  test  their  naked 
souls  against  the  rough  uncivilised  world  : 

"  Who  hath  smelt  wood-smoke  at  twiUght  ?    Who  hath  heard  the 
birch-log  burning  ? 
Who  is  quick  to  read  the  noises  of  the  night  ? 
Let  him  follow  with  the  others,  for  the  Young  Men's  feet  are  turning 
To  the  camps  of  proved  desire  and  known  delight  !  " 

Rudyard  Kipling's  song,  whatever  its  immediate  subject, 
is  always  the  song  of  intrepid  man.  It  is  the  revolt  against 
book-culture  and  a  fresh  demand  for  the  old  culture  of 
experience.  He  was  not  always  rude  in  thought  or  form,  and 
proved  his  power  as  a  more  conventional  poet  in  "Sussex," 
"The  Flowers,"  and  in  the  most  orthodox  of  all  his  poems 
he  has  come  even  nearer  academic  poetry  in  the  expression 
of  his  own  idea  of  human,  and  his  own,  worthiness  : 

"  One  stone  the  more  swings  to  her  place 
In  that  dread  Temple  of  Thy  Worth — 
It  is  enough  that  through  Thy  grace 
I  saw  nought  common  on  Thy  earth. 

Take  not  that  vision  from  my  ken  ; 

Oh,  whatsoe'er  may  spoil  or  speed. 
Help  me  to  need  no  aid  from  men 

That  I  may  help  such  men  as  need.'- 

And  it  is  only  natural  also  that  the  poem  in  his  own  manner 
which  rises  nearest  to  what  we  have  come  to  regard  as  poetry 
is  the  "  L'Envoi  "  to  the  Barrack  Room  Ballads,  in  which  he 
sings  of  the  return  to  the  trail  of  "  proved  desire  and  known 
delight."  But  there  is  little  doubt  that  Kipling's  most 
original  and  inevitable  verse  is  to  be  fomid  in  his  soldier 
songs.  These  chanties  of  military  life  are  unique,  and  in 
them  he  has  transcended  the  art  of  effective  dialect  verse  by 
turning  slang  into  poetry.  Such  ballads  as  "  Fuzzy- Wuzzy  " 
and  "  Mandalay  "  are  as  peculiar  in  their  way,  and  as  separ- 
ate from  the  rest  of  English  poetry,  as  the  designs  of  Aubrey 
Beardsley  are  separate  things  in  English  pictorial  art. 

Q 


242  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Another  class  of  verse  Kipling  also  made  his  own  :  those 
verses  into  which  he  has  put  his  more  personal  views  upon 
questions  of  art  and  conduct.  But  in  these,  as  well  as  in 
some  of  his  more  recent  patriotic  songs,  although  he  has 
succeeded  in  achieving  eloquent  and  vigorous  expression, 
with,  in  addition,  that  piquancy  wliich  is  peculiar  to  all  his 
work,  he  has  strayed  fiu'thest  from  the  path  of  poetry. 
Sometimes  he  has  fallen  into  verses  which  arc  incredibly 
lacking  even  in  the  most  ordinary  characteristics  of  poetry  ; 
and  whatever  one  may  find  in  such  compositions  as  "The 
Conundrum  of  the  Workshops,"  "In  the  Neolithic  Age," 
"Cleared,"  or  "Tomhnson,"  one  only  finds  poetry  by 
accident,  as  one  finds  it  in  prose.  Still,  among  these  are 
works  which  are  their  own  reward,  and  in  some  of  them 
their  author  has  defended  himself  and  his  method  of 
contravening  the  customs  of  polite  art : 

'  Here's  my  wisdom  for  your  use,  as  1  learned  it  where  the  moose 
And  the  reindeer  roared  where  Paris  roars  to-night : — 
There  are  nine  and  sixty  ways  of  constructing  tribal  lays, 
And — every  —single — one  —of  —them  —is  —light . ' ' 

There  is  perhaps  more  in  this  sweeping  assertion  than  art 
disputants  will  be  ready  to  admit.  However,  the  selective 
processes  of  time  would  seem  to  be  on  the  side  of  Kipling, 
who  has  added  another  admission  in  justification  of  his 
methods  in  a  familiar  set  of  quaint  verses  introducing  the 
second  series  of  Barrack  Room  Ballads  in  "  The  Seven  Seas  "  : 

''  When  'Omer  smote  'is  bloomin'  lyre. 
He'd  'eard  men  sing  by  land  an'  sea  ; 
An-  what  he  thought  'e  might  require, 
*E  went  and  took — the  same  as  me  !  -' 

Rudyard  Kipling  has  helped  himself  variedly  at  the  tables 
of  art  and  life,  and  it  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  he  has 
produced  unusual  results.  But  strip  from  his  output  every 
weed,  every  unworthy  production,  and  there  will  remain  not 
one  masterpiece,  but  a  dozen,  and  in  most  branches  of  litera- 
ture— novel,  short  story,  ballad,  lyric,  dialogue  and  descrip- 


1 


RUDYARD  KIPLING  243 

tive  essay.  And  if  his  teaching  at  times  seemed  unneces- 
sarily blatant  it  possessed  an  undercurrent  of  courageous 
wisdom  as  far  removed  from  blatant  jingoism  as  jingoism  is 
from  the  Imperial  or  patriotic  idea.  Wonder  was  reborn  in 
him  ;  but  it  was  not  the  wonder  of  childhood.  It  was  the 
wonder  of  the  gi'own  man  who  had  known  and  observed 
life  and  become  illusion-proof — but  wondered  still  and  was 
thankful  always  : 

"  For  to  admire  an'  for  to  see. 

For  to  be 'old  this  world  so  wide — 
It  never  done  no  good  to  me, 
But  I  can't  drop  it  if  I  tried  !  '' 

He  can  forgive  all  faults  of  passion  or  ambition  ;  but  he 
has  no  place  in  his  system  for  the  characterless  nonentity 
who  is  neither  good  for  something  nor  bad  for  anything.  He 
has  revealed  the  type  in  "Tomlinson,"  and  name  and  man 
have  entered  into  our  conception  of  life.  This  poet  and 
visionary,  who  has  helped  by  his  song  to  weld  a  world-ring 
of  colonies  into  an  Empire,  came  into  the  Nineties  telling 
people  to  have  done  with  the  gods  of  printed  books  and  life 
by  proxy — in  short,  to  have  done  with  anything  in  the  nature 
of  that  Tomlinson  who  was  not  good  enough  for  Heaven  or 
bad  enough  for  Hell,  and  who  was  finally  rejected  by  the 
devil  and  sent  back  to  earth  with  the  admonition  : 

"  Go  back  to  Earth  with  a  lip  unsealed — go  back  with  an  open  eye. 
And  carry  my  word  to  the  Sons  of  Men  or  ever  ye  come  to  die : 
That  the  sin  they  do  by  two  and  two  they  must  pay  for  one  by 

one — 
And  .  .  .  the  God  that  you  took  from  a  printed  book  be  with  you, 

Tomlinson !  " 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


ART    AND    LIFE 


IN  an  earlier  chapter  I  have  pointed  out  that  the  art 
movements  of  the  period  took  in  the  main  two  more 
or  less  diverse  paths,  paths  which  may  be  differentiated 
as  the  scientific  and  the  traditional.  The  first  aimed  at 
reality  of  statement  based  upon  close  observation  of  life, 
the  second  depended  upon  the  recapture  of  past  tendencies 
in  art  and  their  definite  association  with  the  life  of  the  day. 
The  former  was  an  exotic  growth,  having  its  antecedents  in 
the  work  of  the  French  Impressionists  in  painting,  and  the 
Realists  and  S3^mbolists  in  literature.  The  second  was 
native,  going  back  to  the  Middle  Ages  when  art  was  definitely 
allied  with  utility.  The  former  had  for  its  outcome  the 
development  of  the  Fine  Arts,  and  the  latter  that  of  what 
are  known  as  the  Applied  Arts.  In  the  preceding  decade 
the  Applied  Art  movement  had  the  misfortune  of  becoming 
implicated  in  the  aesthetic  propaganda  of  Oscar  Wilde,  and 
although  its  underlying  principles  were  as  sound  then  as  they 
are  now,  it  suffered  in  repute  when  accumulated  ridicule 
finally  drove  out  the  aesthetes.  The  movement  sprang 
directly  from  the  teaching  of  John  Ruskin  and  it  received 
considerable  impetus  from  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 
It  is  doubtful,  however,  Avhether  the  enthusiasm  of  a  grt)up 
of  artists  and  enthusiasts  for  good  craftsmanship  would  have 
developed  into  anything  approaching  the  proportions  of  a 
national  movement  had  it  not  been  for  the  practical  genius 
of  William  Morris.  He  gave  a  fresh  turn  to  the  teaching  of 
Ruskin,  demonstrating  in  things  real  what  was  at  the  time 
little  more  than  a  pious  opinion  in  peril  of  being  lost  in  the 
rhetoric  of  an  impressive  prose. 

For  years  a  battle  had  been  fought  between  the  Impres- 

244 


'  A- GARLATSD  FOR- jMTVY-DAY •  1893  • 

-  OtDlCATLDTO  THL  \VOPvKEK&  BY  WALT£.WCIU\7i£  ♦ 


1 

I 


ART  AND  LIFE  245 

sionists  and  the  Traditionalists,  and  the  long  series  of  wordy 
engagements    had    culminated    in    the    Law    Courts    when 
Whistler  brought  his  famous  action  against  Ruskin.     The 
result  was  a  PyiThic  victory  for  Whistler.     This  did  little 
more  than  tlirow  the  contending  parties  into  more  definitely 
hostile  camps  without  giving  any  hope  of  ultimate  peace. 
William  Morris,  naturally  on  the  side  of  Ruskin,  did  not 
make    Ruskin's  mistake  of   under-estimating    or    decrying 
the  realistic  movement.     Being  a  craftsman  himself,  and 
knowing  good  craftsmanship  when  he  saw  it,  he  realised  that 
the  Impressionists  were  sincere  artists,  equally  with  himself ; 
though,  from  his  point  of  view,  wrong-headed  ;    and,  after 
granting  so  much,  he  was  content  with  stating  his  differences. 
"  Now  it  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  in  the  preface  to  Arts  and 
Crafts  Essays  (1893),  "  that  this  impulse  in  men  of  certain 
minds  and  moods  towards  certain  forms  of  art,  this  genuine 
eclecticism,  is  all  that  we  can  expect  under  modern  civilisa- 
tion ;    that  we  can  expect  no  general  impulse  towards  the 
fine  arts  till  civilisation  has  been  transformed  into  some  other 
condition  of  life,  the  details  of  which  we  cannot  foresee.     Let 
us  then  make  the  best  of  it,  and  admit  that  those  who  practise 
art  must  nowadays  be  conscious  of  that  practice  ;  conscious 
I  mean  that  they  are  either  adding  a  certain  amount  of 
artistic  beauty  and  interest  to  a  piece  of  goods  which  would, 
if  produced  in  the  ordinary  way,  have  no  beauty  or  artistic 
interest,  or  that  they  are  producing  something  which  has  no 
other  reason  for  existence  than  its  beauty  and  artistic  interest. 
But  having  made  the  admission  let  us  accept  the  consequence 
of  it,  and  understand  that  it  is  our  business  as  artists,  since 
we  desire  to  produce  works  of  art,  to  supply  the  lack  of 
tradition  by  diligently  cultivating  in  ourselves  the  sense  of 
beauty  {pace  the  Impressionists),  skill  of  hand  and  niceness 
of  observation,  without  which  only  a  malceshift  of  art  can  be 
got ;   and  also,  so  far  as  we  can,  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
public  to  the  fact  that  there  are  a  few  persons  who  are  doing 
this,  and  even  earning  a  livelihood  by  so  doing,  and  that 
therefore,  in  spite  of  the  destructive  tradition  of  our  immedi- 
ate past,  in  spite  of  the  great  revolution  in  the  production  of 


246  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

wares,  which  this  century  only  has  seen  on  the  road  to  com- 
pletion, and  which  on  the  face  of  it,  and  perhaps  essentially, 
is  hostile  to  art,  in  spite  oi'  all  dilTiculties  which  the  evolution 
of  the  later  days  of  society  has  thrown  in  the  way  of  that  side 
of  human  pleasure  which  is  called  art,  there  is  still  a  minority 
with  a  good  deal  of  life  in  it  which  is  not  content  with  what 
is  called  utilitarianism,  which,  being  interpreted,  means  the 
reckless  waste  of  life  in  the  pursuit  of  the  means  of  life." 
Morris  himself  endeavoured  to  put  his  theories  into  practice 
in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  finally  by  the  control  of  his  own 
workshops  at  Merton  Abbey  and  the  sale  of  his  goods  at  the 
historic  shop  in  Oxford  Street. 

The  idea  of  bringing  together  art  and  craft  possessed  Morris 
throughout  his  life,  but  it  is  a  curious  fact  in  the  history  of 
the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement  that  he  neither  initiated  the 
idea  of  the  handicraft  workshop,  of  which  he  became  pro- 
prietor, nor  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Society,  of  which  he  became 
chief  figure.  The  former  was  suggested  in  the  first  instance 
by  Ford  Madox  Brown,  and  the  latter  was  a  chance  result  of 
an  abortive  revolt  on  the  part  of  a  number  of  young  artists, 
chiefly  members  of  the  new  English  Art  Club,  against  the 
methods  of  the  Hanging  Committee  of  the  Royal  Academy 
Exhibition.  This  rising  occurred  in  1886,  and,  upon  its 
proving  ineffective,  the  craftsmen  and  decorative  artists  who 
had  thrown  in  their  lot  with  the  revolutionaries  were  led  by 
Walter  Crane  into  a  new  camp,  which  two  years  later  became 
the  Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition  Society.  This  was  the  first 
organisation  to  give  general  publicity  to  the  aims  of  a  move- 
ment which  had  received  the  benediction  of  the  craftsmen 
who  founded  the  Art  Workers'  Guild  in  1884.  William 
Morris  was  one  of  the  earliest  members  of  the  Guild,  and 
he  eventually  became  a  Guild  Master.  No  one  denies  the 
supremacy  of  his  influence  in  the  handicrafts  movement  ; 
just  as  he  never  denied,  in  fact  was  always  ready  to  admit, 
the  influence  of  Ruskin  on  his  own  work  and  ideas.  In  1892 
he  WTote  a  preface  to  a  popular  reprint  of  the  chapter  from 
The  Stones  of  Venice,  called  "  The  Nature  of  Gothic,"  in  the 
course  of  which  he  said  that  he  believed  that  chapter  to  be 


ART  AND  LIFE  247 

one  of  the  most  important  things  written  by  Ruskin,  and 
that  in  future  days  it  would  be  considered  "  as  one  of  the 
very  few  necessary  and  inevitable  utterances  of  the  century." 
And  in  the  same  preface  he  upheld  Ruskin's  teaching  that 
art  was  the  expression  of  man's  joy  in  his  work,  and  laid  it 
down  as  a  fervent  conviction  that  "  the  hallowing  of  labour 
by  art  "  was  the  one  aim  for  artists  and  craftsmen  of  the 
time.  More  than  any  other  man  of  his  day  he  lived  for  that 
purpose  and  devoted  to  it  an  energy  and  a  variety  of  gifts 
without  equal  since  the  days  of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 

In  the  Eighteen  Nineties  there  were  those,  even  as  there 
are  to-day,  who  persisted  in  looking  upon  this  unique  crafts- 
man as  a  poet  and  belles  leitrist,  and  upon  his  craftsmanship 
and  his  Socialism  as  the  whims  of  an  otherwise  responsible 
genius.  The  writing  of  poetry  was,  of  course,  one  of  the 
many  arts  in  w^hich  he  was  a  master.  Yet  he  never  placed 
himself  on  a  poetical  pedestal,  and  he  had  no  high  opinion 
of  those  w^ho  made  poetry  the  sole  business  of  a  lifetime. 
Poetry  was  only  one  of  the  many  incidents  in  his  extraordin- 
arily varied  career.  He  not  only  practised  many  crafts,  but 
so  w'ide  w^as  his  vision,  and  so  tremendous  his  store  of  energy, 
that  he  would  practise  several  crafts,  including  the  writing 
of  poetry,  literally  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Those  who 
worked  with  him  remember  how  he  could  work  at  a  design, 
a  poem,  an  essay  and  a  piece  of  tapestry,  and  produce  good 
work  in  each  during,  say,  the  course  of  a  single  morning. 
First  he  might  be  working  at  his  loom,  and  all  the  while  he 
would  be  mumbling  to  himself,  and  humming  aloud  as  if  he 
w^ere  trying  a  tune  over  in  his  head  and  testing  it  by  sound  ; 
then  he  would  jump  up  from  the  loom,  sit  down  at  a  table, 
and  scribble  very  rapidly  the  verse  of  a  poem  ;  immediately 
afterwards  he  would  add  something  to  the  manuscript  of  an 
essay  that  would  probably  be  delivered  as  a  lecture,  returning 
anon  to  his  loom  to  throw  the  shuttle  for  a  while,  before 
taking  up  an  unfinished  design  for  printed  fabrics,  stained 
glass  or  book  decoration. 

In  the  midst  of  this  apparently  scattered  activity  Morris 
not  only  finished  a  great  amount  of  work,  but  he  knew 


248  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

precisely  wliat  he  was  doing  and  had  constantly  before  his 
mind  the  ideal  towards  which  he  aimed.  "  The  aim  of  art," 
he  said,  "  is  to  increase  the  happiness  of  men  by  giving  them 
beauty  and  interest  in  incident  to  amuse  their  leisure,  and 
prevent  their  wearying  even  of  rest,  and  by  giving  them  hope 
and  bodily  pleasure  in  their  work  ;  or,  shortly,  to  make  man's 
work  happy  and  his  rest  fruitful."  He  himself  rested  only 
when  he  went  to  bed.  Somebody  once  criticised  the  discom- 
fort of  a  chair  he  had  designed,  and  the  reply  of  William 
Morris  was  :  "If  you  want  to  be  comfortable,  go  to  bed." 
That  explains  the  man.  He  loved  his  work  ;  every  expres- 
sion of  energy  in  the  whole  of  that  busy  life  was  an  expression 
of  joy.  He  knew  that  what  he  was  doing  was  art,  but  he 
made  no  more  fuss  about  it  than  he  fussed  about  his  poetry  ; 
because  he  knew  also  that  what  he  was  doing  was  useful 
work. 

William  Morris  had  the  imagination  to  see  life  in  the  form 
of  design  and  the  skill  to  express  this  sense  of  design  in  the 
materials  of  his  art.  That  is  the  keynote  of  his  genius  and 
of  his  teaching.  You  can  best  understand  his  poetry,  his 
romances,  his  stained  glass  and  tapestries  and  chintzes,  the 
books  of  the  Kelmscott  Press,  as  well  as  his  Socialism,  by  an 
appeal  to  design — not  an  appeal  merely  to  the  technical 
relationship  of  lines  and  spaces  and  colours  in  patterns,  or  of 
rhymes  and  rhythms  in  a  poem,  but  design  as  the  relation- 
ship of  idea  and  action,  the  relationship  of  art  and  purpose. 
William  Morris  always  had  at  the  back  of  his  mind  the  dream 
of  a  Perfect  State.  Always  busy  in  the  visible  world,  he  was 
still  busier  in  the  Utopia  of  his  fanc}^  The  beautiful  things 
he  made  were  imported  to  this  world  from  that  Utopia,  and 
their  very  importation  was  an  act  of  propaganda.  The)' 
were  the  real  Nezvs  from  Nozvhere.  And  he  did  not  bring 
them  here  to  make  lovers  of  the  fine  arts  content  with  modern 
civilisation  ;  he  brought  them  here  deliberately  to  lure  the 
people  of  his  day  from  their  ugly  surroundings  into  the  better 
land  of  his  dreams.  Everything  he  created  was  a  lure  to 
Utopia,  an  invitation  to  follow  him  into  a  new  world. 

He  remarked  once  in  a   lecture  :       I  must  remind  you, 


ART  AND  LIFE  249 

though  I,  and  better  men  than  I,  have  said  it  over  and  over 
again,  that  once  every  man  that  made  anything  made  it  a 
work  of  art  besides  a  useful  piece  of  goods,  whereas  now  only 
a  very  few  things  have  even  the  most  distant  claims  to  be 
considered  works  of  art.  I  beg  you  to  consider  that  most 
carefully  and  seriously,  and  to  try  to  think  what  it  means. 
But  first,  lest  any  of  you  doubt  it,  let  me  ask  you  what  forms 
the  great  mass  of  the  objects  that  fill  our  museums,  setting 
aside  positive  lectures  and  sculpture  ?  Is  it  not  j  ust  the 
common  household  goods  that  pass  time  ?  True  it  is  that 
some  people  may  look  upon  them  simply  as  curiosities,  but 
you  and  I  have  been  taught  most  properly  to  look  upon  them 
as  priceless  treasures  that  can  teach  us  all  sorts  of  things, 
and  yet,  I  repeat,  they  are  for  the  most  part  common  house- 
hold goods  wrought  by  common  fellows,  as  people  say  now, 
without  any  cultivation,  men  who  thought  the  sun  went 
round  the  earth  and  that  Jerusalem  was  exactly  in  the  middle 
of  the  world."  William  Morris  was  not  defending  museums, 
he  was  advocating  conditions  that  would  make  it  possible 
for  the  common  people  of  to-day  to  create  after  their  own 
manner  beautiful,  useful  things,  just  as  the  common  people 
of  other  times  created  such  things  after  their  manner.  Such 
treasures  were  for  him  incentives  to  good  artistic  conduct, 
which  for  him  again  was  nothing  less  than  good  citizenship. 
Good  craftsmanship  as  understood  by  William  Morris  and 
his  fellow-craftsmen,  although  they  talked  much  of  beauty, 
was  in  the  main  a  demand  for  quality  in  material,  execution 
and  taste  allied  with  the  idea  of  a  change  in  social  life,  as 
without  that  these  three  things  would  be  impossible.  The 
main  tendency  of  the  handicraft  revival  was  therefore  social 
when  it  was  not  actually  Socialist.  It  was  rarely  individual 
and  private  after  the  manner  of  the  old  fine  arts  and  the  new. 
"The  decline  of  art,"  wTote  Walter  Crane,  "corresponds 
with  its  conversion  into  portable  forms  of  private  property, 
or  material  or  commercial  speculation.  Its  aims  under  such 
conditions  become  entirely  different.  All  really  great  works 
of  art  are  public  works — monumental,  collective,  generic — 
expressing  the  ideas  of  a  race,  a  community,  a  united  people  ; 


250  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

not  the  ideas  of  a  class, "  It  was  inevitable  that  the  ideas 
of  John  Ruskin  should  have  been  exploited  to  the  full  in 
a  movement  which  sought  thus  to  bring  about  the  com- 
munalisation  of  art.  But  these  ideas  were  not  the  only  in- 
fluence. The  prose  works  of  Richard  Wagner  were  printed 
during  the  decade,  and  his  doctrine  of  a  folk-art  had  a  sure 
though  less  definite  effect  in  many  quarters,  more  especially 
among  those  who,  with  INIary  Neal,  revived  the  almost  lost 
art  of  folk-dance  and  singing  games  which  became  so  im- 
portant a  feature  of  the  Esperance  Girls'  Club  and  Social 
Settlement,  founded  by  her  with  Emmeline  Pethick  Lawrence 
in  1895,  At  the  same  time  the  folk-art  revival  was  being 
strengthened  by  the  researches  into  folk-song  of  Broadwood, 
Baring-Gould,  Frank  Kidson  and  Cecil  Sharp,  The  appear- 
ance also  of  Aylmer  Maude's  translation  of  Tolstoy's  WJiat  is 
Art?  in  1899  aroused  heated  discussions  and  a  wide  interest 
among  art  reformers.  All  prominent  craftsmen  agreed  with 
the  Wagnerian  conception  of  the  artistic  as  distinct  from  the 
financial  community,  and  they  looked  forward  to  the  time 
when,  in  Wagner's  own  words,  "  art  .  .  .  would  become  the 
herald  and  standard  of  all  future  communal  institutions," 
And  it  was  easy  for  those  who  held  this  faith  to  sympathise 
with  Tolstoy's  onslaught  upon  decadence,  and  to  accept  the 
Tolstoyan  pronouncement  that,  "Art  is  not,  as  the  meta- 
physicians say,  the  manifestation  of  some  mysterious  Idea  of 
beauty,  or  God  ;  it  is  not,  as  the  sesthetical  physiologists 
say,  a  game  in  which  man  lets  off  his  excess  of  stored-up 
energy  ;  it  is  not  the  expression  of  man's  emotions  by  external 
signs  ;  it  is  not  the  production  of  pleasing  objects  ;  and, 
above  all,  it  is  not  pleasure  ;  but  it  is  a  means  of  union 
among  men,  joining  them  together  in  the  same  feeling,  and 
indispensable  for  the  life  and  progress  towards  well-being 
of  individuals  and  of  humanity,"  It  will  be  seen,  then,  that 
the  two  paths  of  the  modern  art  movement  resolved  them- 
selves into  two  very  definite  and  very  different  aims  :  the 
communal  and  the  individual,  the  public  and  the  private. 

But  whatever  theories  about  art  dominated  the  intelligence 
of  the  members  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement,  one  thing 


ART  AND  LIFE  251 

s  certain,  their  activities  produced  a  notable  effect  upon 
taste  in  all  matters  relating  to  architecture  and  the  decorative 
and  useful  arts,  and  permeated  more  particularl}^  the  taste 
of  the  middle  classes  in  Great  Britain,  spreading  from  them 
to  Europe  and  America.  To  a  large  extent  propaganda 
was  carried  on  by  example  rather  than  by  precept,  and  this 
was  made  possible  by  the  existence  of  so  many  craftsmen 
of  ability  and  repute.  William  Morris  himself  might  have 
made  any  movement  by  his  capacity  for  mastering  whatever 
art  or  craft  appealed  to  him,  and  he  was  known  throughout 
the  world  for  his  skill  as  a  designer,  weaver,  dyer  and  printer. 
But  all  branches  of  craftsmanship  had  their  masters.  These 
included  Walter  Crane,  designer,  painter  and  illustrator  ; 
Emery  Walker,  printer;  T..  J.  Cobden-Sanderson,  and  his 
pupil,  Douglas  Cockerell,  bookbinders  ;  William  de  Morgan, 
tilemaker ;  May  Morris,  embroiderer ;  Henry  Wilson, 
W.  A.  S.  Benson  and  Edmund  Spencer,  metal-workers ; 
Stephen  Webb,  wood-carver  ;  and,  perhaps  most  important 
of  all,  the  group  of  architects  led  by  Norman  Shaw,  and  in- 
cluding T.  G.  Jackson,  Reginald  Blomfield,  W.  R.  Lethaby, 
G.  F.  Bodley,  Basil  Champneys,  Bailey  Scott  and  C.  F.  A. 
Voysey,  who  together  revolutionised  our  ideas  of  domestic, 
and  opened  the  way  to  a  new  era  in  public,  architecture. 
Many  of  these  art  workers  were  recognised  masters  in  the 
preceding  decade,  and  one  or  two  even  before  that,  but  it 
remained  for  the  Nineties  to  give  their  work  a  wider  and 
more  general  acceptance. 

The  outward  effect  of  this  search  for  excellence  of  quality 
and  utility  in  art  was,  however,  not  so  profound  as  it  might 
have  been.  This  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  conditions 
under  which  Morris  and  his  group  worked  were  so  far  re- 
moved from  the  conditions  of  the  average  economic  and  in- 
dustrial life  of  the  time  as  to  appear  impractical  for  general 
adoption.  They  demonstrated,  it  is  true,  that  it  was  possible 
to  produce  useful  articles  of  fi)ie  quality  and  good  taste  even 
in  an  age  of  debased  industry,  and  scamped  and  counterfeit 
workmanship  ;  but  their  demonstration  proved  also  that 
unless  something  like  a  revolution  happened  among  wage- 


252  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

earners  none  but  those  of  ample  worldly  means  could  hope 
to  become  possessed  of  the  results  of  such  craftsmanship. 
The  Arts  and  Crafts  movement  was  thus  checked  in  its 
most  highly  organised  and  enthusiastic  period  by  the  habit 
and  necessity  of  clieapness.  It  was  found  possible  to  educate 
taste,  for  even  modern  commerce  had  not  succeeded  in  kill- 
ing the  fundamental  love  of  excellence  in  commodities,  but 
as  quickly  as  taste  was  improved  by  exhibitions  of  modern 
craftsmanship,  commerce  stepped  in  supplying  those  who 
could  not  afford  the  necessarily  expensive  results  with  cheap 
imitations.  The  ogre  of  shoddy  stood  across  the  path  of 
quality,  and  many  who  were  set  upon  the  high  trail  of  ex- 
cellence by  the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement  ended  as  devotees 
of  fumed  oak  furniture,  and  what  began  as  a  great  move- 
ment was  in  danger  of  ending  as  an  empty  fashion  with  the 
word  "  artistic  "  for  shibboleth. 

Such  negative  results  did  not  imply  complete  failure.  The 
Arts  and  Crafts  movement  never  expected  immediate 
victory,  far  less  would  it  have  been  capable  of  the  illusion 
that  passing  fashion  and  victory  were  one  and  the  same 
thing.  They  were  doing  pioneer  work,  propaganda  by 
demonstration,  and  even  if  all  craftsmen  were  not  convinced 
of  the  impossibility  of  making  such  work  the  rule  rather 
than  the  exception  in  a  commercial  community,  they  learnt 
their  lesson  very  soon,  and  readily  admitted  and  advocated 
some  other  than  the  prevailing  financial  standard  of  pro- 
duction. Still,  the  work  of  the  craftsmen  named  represents 
so  high  an  achievement  that  we  have  to  go  back  many  years 
before  we  can  find  anything  in  this  country  to  equal  it,  and 
although  the  Arts  and  Crafts  as  an  organised  movement  is 
not  so  apparent  to-day,  the  tradition  of  good  craftsmanship 
has  been  recaptured  and  its  upholders  will  not  readily  let  it 
be  lost  again. 

To  have  accomplished  so  much  is  no  little  achievement, 
but  perhaps  a  more  important  contribution  to  the  vitality 
of  the  period  was  the  recognition  and  the  interpretation  of 
the  organic  relationship  between  the  separate  arts  and  archi- 
tecture and  between  architecture  and  the  building  of  towns. 


ART  AND  LIFE  253 

The  immediate  function  of  art  as  understood  by  the  Arts  and 
Crafts  movement  was  stated  by  T.  J.  Cobdcn-Sanderson  in 
a  lecture  at  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition  in  189G  as  the 
power  of  doing  things  in  the  spirit  of  an  artist  and  in  refer- 
ence to  the  whole  of  life.  "Art  implies  a  certain  lofty  en- 
vironment," he  said,  "and  is  itself  an  adjustment  to  that 
environment,  of  all  that  can  be  done  by  mankind  within  it. 
Art  as  a  great  function  of  human  imagination  is  not  the 
creation  of  isolated  objects  of  beauty,  though  isolated  objects 
of  beauty  may  indeed  be  created  by  Art,  and  in  themselves 
resume  all  that  is  beautiful,  orderly,  restful  and  stable  in  the 
artist's  conception  of  that  environment.  Still  less  is  it,  what 
some  may  seem  to  imagine,  the  objects  of  beauty  themselves. 
It  is  something — it  is  much—nioTe.  Art  is,  or  should  be, 
alive,  alive  and  a  universal  stimulus.  It  is  that  spirit  of 
order  and  seemliness,  of  dignity  and  sublimity,  which,  acting 
in  unison  with  the  great  perception  of  natural  forces  in  their 
own  orderly  evolution,  tends  to  make  out  of  the  chaos  of 
egotistic  passions  a  great  power  of  disinterested  social 
action."  And  in  a  lecture  on  "Beautiful  Cities,"  delivered 
at  the  same  exhibition,  W.  R.  Lethaby  took  the  idea  further 
and  gave  it  a  more  practical  turn  :  ' '  Art  is  not  the  pride  of 
the  eye  and  the  purse,  it  is  a  link  with  the  child-spirit  and 
the  child-ages  of  the  world.  The  Greek  drama  gi'cw  up  out 
of  the  village  dance  ;  the  Greek  theatre  was  developed  from 
the  stone-paved  circles  where  the  dances  took  place.  If  we 
gather  the  children  who  now  dance  at  the  street  corners  into 
some  better  dancing-ground,  might  we  not  hope  for  a  new 
music,  a  new  drama,  and  a  new  architecture  ?  Unless  there 
is  a  ground  of  beauty,  vain  it  is  to  expect  the  fruit  of  beauty. 
Failing  the  spirit  of  Art,  it  is  futile  to  attempt  to  leaven  this 
huge  mass  of  '  man  styes  '  by  erecting  specimens  of  archi- 
tect's arcliitecture,  and  dumping  down  statues  of  people  in 
cocked  hats.  We  should  begin  on  tlic  humblest  plane  by 
sweeping  the  streets  better,  washing  and  whitewashing  the 
houses,  and  taking  care  that  such  railings  and  lamp-posts 
as  are  required  are  good  lamp-posts  and  railings,  the  work 
of  the  best  artists  attainable."     By  linking  up  art  with  the 


254  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

city  and  with  common  things  the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement 
completed  the  sequence  of  its  ideas,  and  if  it  has  not  as  yet 
succeeded  in  creating  a  new  Jerusalem,  it  has  indicated  a 
way  by  pointing  out  the  path  for  the  Town  Planning  activities 
of  a  later  date.  Many  craftsmen-visionaries  saw  afar  off  the 
Promised  Land.  William  Morris  set  his  own  vision  down  in 
the  magical  prose  oi  News  from  Nowhere  (1891),  and  there  is 
little  doubt  that  his  vision  and  their  craftsmanship  helped 
the  ideas  of  Ebenezer  Ploward  as  expressed  in  Garden  Cities 
of  To-morrow  to  such  practical  manifestations  as  they  have 
received  at  Letchworth  and  Golders  Green. 

The  weakness  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement  was  a 
weakness  of  circumstance  rather  than  ability.  Its  members 
did  pioneer  work,  and  one  of  the  first  tasks  was  to  step  back 
into  the  past  towards  fine  standards  and  sound  traditions  of 
workmanship  before  stepping  forward  into  the  future  with 
their  records  and  examples,  or  even,  indeed,  lauding  them  in 
the  present.  Thus  their  work,  excellent  though  it  is,  looks 
and  is  archaic.  The  best  craftsmanship  of  the  Eighteen 
Nineties  "vvas  outmoded  at  birth — "  born  out  of  its  due  time." 
It  was  sound  in  workmanship,  excellent  in  design ;  at  its  best, 
beautiful ;  but  in  the  main  it  was  'prentice  work,  a  lesson 
rather  than  an  achievement.  It  bore  the  stigmata  of  unrest 
and  yearning  instead  of  the  easy  gladness  of  confident  and 
inevitable  expression  which  was  at  once  true  to  its  moment 
and  fit  for  its  purpose. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


THE    REVIVAL    OF    PRINTING 


THE  revival  of  the  art  of  printing  began  when  Messrs 
Charles  Whittingham  revived  Caslon's  famous 
founts  at  the  Chiswick  Press  in  1844,  The  first 
volume  of  the  revival  was  the  Diary  of  Lady  Willoughhy, 
printed  for  Messrs  Longmans.  Before  that  date,  and  for  a 
period  covering  something  like  a  century  and  a  half,  a  pro- 
cess of  degeneration  had  been  at  work  in  the  craft  of  book- 
making,  which,  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
had  reached  a  degree  of  positive  ugliness  as  supreme  in  its 
own  way  as  the  positive  beauty  of  the  books  by  the  gi'cat 
presses  of  the  past.  This  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when 
it  is  remembered  that  the  materials  with  which  the  revival 
was  begun  existed  so  far  back  as  the  year  1720,  when  Caslon 
set  up  his  t^-pe  foundry  in  London  and  commenced  casting 
those  "  old- faced  "  alphabets  which  had  been  drawn  from 
the  seventeenth-century  Elzevirs  and  Plantins. 

But  although  the  revival  of  printing  began  so  far  back  as 
1844  with  the  work  of  the  Chiswick  Press,  the  revival  of  the 
personal  note  in  printing  did  not  come  about  until  a  half- 
century  later,  when,  during  the  Eighteen  Nineties,  suddenly, 
with  few  obvious  preliminaries,  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  the  Golden  Age  of  what  may  be  termed  subjective 
printing.  The  revival  appeared  to  be  extemporaneous, 
but,  like  all  such  occui'rences,  it  was  founded  on  a  succes- 
sion of  real  if  imperceptible  circumstances,  not  least  of  which 
were  the  existence  of  ugliness  and  lack  of  individuality  which 
sooner  or  later  will,  in  any  age  in  which  it  occurs,  provoke 
the  finer  and  more  impressionable  minds  to  protest.  The 
protest  in  this  instance  took,  in  the  productions  of  the  Vale, 
Kelmscott,   Eragny,   Essex   House,   and  Doves  presses,   a 

255 


256  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

creative  and  positive  form,  as  natural  as  the  foliation  and 
fruition  of  plants.  The  tastes  of  such  men  as  William  Morris, 
Emery  Walker  and  Charles  Ricketts  were  revolted  at  the 
vulgar,  tawdry  and  expressionless  books  of  the  time  and,  being 
masters  of  practiciil  imagination,  their  protest  was  creative. 
They  wanted  beautiful  books,  and  instead  of  grumbling  with 
what  existed,  they  set  to  work  and  made  what  they  could  not 
bu}^  'J'hey  were  moved  again  by  that  vital  form  of  atavism 
which,  by  throwing  back  to  an  earlier  period,  picks  up  the 
dropped  thread  of  tradition,  and  so  continues  the  process 
of  evolution  ;  their  protest  therefore  became,  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word,  a  revolution  :  a  turning  round  to  the 
period  when  craftsmanship,  imagination  and  life  were  one 
and  indivisible. 

In  the  making  of  books  the  first  and  most  essential  demand 
is  for  legibility.  The  printing  must  be  readable.  To  this 
end  must  type  be  fashioned  and  page  built,  Charles 
Ricketts,  with  those  two  other  masters  of  the  revival  of 
great  printing,  William  Morris  and  Emery  ^Valkcr,  realised 
this  need,  and  in  their  founts  they  aimed  at  clarity  and 
utility  combined  with  personal  expression.  The  commercial 
tradition  of  the  ololong  letter,  with  its  false  utility,  was 
abandoned,  and  the  dignity  of  the  square  and  round  types 
of  Jenson  restored,  possible  loss  of  space  by  such  a 
proceeding  being  obviated  by  greater  care  in  the  building 
of  the  page  and  in  the  setting  of  the  lines. 

The  Arts  and  Crafts  movement  had,  as  we  have  seen,  set 
people  of  taste  hunting  for  the  lost  tlireads  of  good  craft 
tradition,  and  the  fin  tie  siecle  revival  of  printing  as  an  art- 
craft  was  one  of  the  most  successful  results  of  its  cfl'orts. 
The  study  of  well-printed  books  of  the  past  led  William  ISIorris 
and  Emery  Walker  towards  what  may  be  called  a  new  ethic 
of  good  printing.  They  set  forth  their  ideas  in  a  joint  essay 
forming  one  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Essays  of  1893.  "  The 
essential  point  to  remember,"  they  said,  "is  that  the  orna- 
ment, whatever  it  is,  whether  picture  or  pattern-work, 
should  form  part  of  the  page,  should  be  a  part  of  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  book.     Simple  as  this  proposition  is,  it  is 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  PRINTING         257 

necessary  to  be  stated,  because  the  modern  practice  is  to 
disregard  the  relation  between  the  printing  and  the  orna- 
ment altogether,  so  that  if  the  two  are  helpful  to  one  another 
it  is  a  mere  matter  of  accident.  The  due  relation  of  letters 
to  pictures  and  other  ornaments  was  thoroughly  understood 
by  the  old  printers  ;  so  that,  even  when  the  woodcuts  are 
very  rude  indeed,  the  proportions  of  the  page  still  give 
pleasure  by  the  sense  of  richness  that  the  cuts  and  letters 
together  convey.  When,  as  is  most  often  the  case,  there 
is  actual  beauty  in  the  cuts,  the  books  so  ornamented  are 
amongst  the  most  delightful  works  of  art  that  have  ever 
been  produced.  Therefore,  gi'anted  well-designed  type,  due 
spacing  of  the  lines  and  words,  and  proper  position  of  the 
page  on  the  paper,  all  books  might  be  at  least  comely  and 
well-looking  ;  and  if  to  these  good  qualities  were  added  really 
beautiful  ornament  and  pictures,  printed  books  might  once 
again  illustrate  to  the  full  position  of  our  Society  that  a  work 
of  utility  might  be  also  a  work  of  art,  if  we  cared  to  make  it 
so."  This  passage  contains  the  germ  idea  of  the  return  to 
fine  printing. 

Still,  although  so  much  research  and  good  work  was  done 
by  William  Morris  and  Emery  Walker,  the  desire  to  produce 
books  of  dignity  and  beauty  inspired  more  than  one  group 
of  enthusiasts,  and  the  founders  of  the  Kelmseott  Press  were 
not  the  first  in  practical  results.  The  Hobby  Horse  (1886- 
1892),  edited  by  Herbert  P.  Home  and  Selwyn  Image,  with 
its  carefully  built  pages,  was  an  earlier  intimation  of  coming 
developments,  and  Hacon  &  Ricketts  devised  a  new  typo- 
graphical beauty  by  the  publication  of  The  Dial,  in  1889. 
The  revival,  however,  began  to  find  itself  at  the  Arts  and 
Crafts  Exhibition  of  1888,  when  Emery  Walker  contributed 
an  essay  on  printing  to  the  catalogue.  In  the  years  1889 
and  1890  Morris  made  a  definitely  practical  move  by  super- 
intending the  printing  of  three  books.  The  House  of  the 
Wolfings,  The  Roots  of  the  Mountains  and  the  Gumilang  Saga, 
at  the  Chiswick  Press.  All  this  time  he  had  been  brooding 
upon  the  idea  of  a  Press  of  his  own,  and  he  made  his  first 
experiments  towards  the  foundation  of  the  Kelmseott  Press 


258  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

in  1889  and  1890.  "  What  I  wanted,"  he  WTote  hi  the  Note 
on  his  aims  in  founding  the  Kelmscott  Press,  "was  letter 
pure  in  form  ;  severe,  without  needless  excrescences  ;  solid, 
w  ithout  the  thickening  and  thinning  of  the  line  which  is  the 
essential  fault  of  the  ordinary  modern  type,  and  which  makes 
it  difficult  to  read  ;  and  not  compressed  laterally,  as  all  later 
type  has  grown  to  be  owing  to  commercial  exigencies.  There 
was  only  one  source  from  which  to  take  examples  of  this 
perfected  Roman  t}^e — to  wit,  the  works  of  the  great 
Venetian  printers  of  the  fifteenth  century,  of  whom  Nicholas 
Jenson  produced  the  completest  and  most  Roman  characters 
from  1470  to  14.76.  This  type  I  studied  with  much  care, 
getting  it  photographed  to  a  big  scale,  and  di'awing  it  over 
many  times  before  I  began  designing  my  own  letters  ;  so 
that  though  I  think  I  mastered  the  essence  of  it,  I  did  not 
copy  it  servilely  ;  in  fact,  my  Roman  type,  especially  in  the 
lower  case,  tends  rather  to  the  Gothic  than  does  Jenson 's." 
The  desire  thus  embodied  in  words  became  a  living  fact. 
During  1890  Morris  was  experimenting  with  his  types,  and 
on  the  31st  January  in  the  following  year  the  first  trial  sheet 
was  printed  on  the  Kehiiscott  Press,  which  had  been  set  up 
in  a  cottage  close  to  Kelmscott  House  on  the  Upper  Mall, 
Hammersmith. 

The  first  book  printed  was  Morris's  own  romance,  The 
Story  of  the  Glittering  Plain ;  it  was  finished  on  4th  April, 
and  in  the  same  year  Poems  by  the  Way  was  set  up  and 
printed.  For  the  next  five  years,  and  to  the  end  of  the  great 
craftsman's  life,  books  were  printed  at  the  rate  of  about  ten 
each  year,  and  in  all  fifty-tliree  works  were  issued  during 
the  life  of  the  Press  (1891-1897),  which  together  stand  unique 
among  books  both  for  honesty  of  purpose  and  beauty  of 
accomplishment.  The  books  published  naturally  reflect 
IMorris's  own  literary  taste.  The  act  of  printing  was  with 
him  an  act  of  reverence,  and  all  of  the  volumes  issued  were 
printed  in  the  spirit  of  love  of  fine  literature  and  his  own  work. 
Three  founts  of  type  were  created  by  IMorris.  The  first, 
called  the  "  Golden,"  was  a  Roman  type  inspired  by  Jenson 
but  having  a  Gothic  appearance,  ^hich  makes  it  unlike  any 


Page  Uixokation  krom  tiik  Kklmscott  Coleridge 

Ay  li'illiaiH  Morris 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  PRINTING  259 

other  type  in  existence.  This  fount  has  extremely  beautiful 
letters,  solid  and  clear,  making  a  page  of  vivid  blackness 
combined  with  absolute  legibility.  The  next,  called  the 
"Troy,"  was  a  large  Gothic  type,  beautiful  in  its  way,  and 
quite  legible,  but  archaic  in  effect  and  unsuitable  for  general 
printing.  The  last  type  to  be  cast  was  the  "  Chaucer  "  ; 
this  was  simply  the  "Troy  "  type  reduced  for  the  purpose 
of  printing  the  noble  folio  edition  of  the  works  of  Geoffrey 
Chaucer.  With  these  three  founts  books  of  several  sizes 
were  produced  with  equally  good  results.  There  were 
delightful  16mo's,  such  as  The  Tale  of  the  Emyeror  Coustans, 
The  Friendship  of  Amis  and  Amile  and  Morris's  own  lecture 
on  Gothic  Architecture,  which  was  printed  by  the  Kelmscott 
Press  at  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition  of  1893.  The 
octavos  covered  a  wide  field,  and  included  some  of  the 
masterpieces  of  the  Press,  notably  the  Poems  of  Coleridge, 
Tennyson's  Maud,  Hand  and  Soul,  by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti, 
and  The  Nature  of  Gothic,  by  Ruskin.  The  quartos  contain 
several  of  Morris's  own  works,  notable  examples  being  News 
from  Nowhere  and  The  Wood  Beyond  the  World,  and  Caxton's 
Historyes  of  Troye,  The  Golden  Legend  and  George  Caven- 
dish's Life  of  Cardinal  Wolsey.  Nine  books  were  issued  in 
folio — namely,  The  History  of  Reynard  the  Fox  (1892),  The 
History  of  Godfrey  ofBologne  (1893),  Sidonia  the  Sorceress,  by 
William  Meinhold,  translated  by  Lady  Wilde  (1893),  The 
Story  of  the  Glittering  Plain,^  by  William  Morris  (1894) ; 
Atalanta  in  Calydon,  by  Swinburne  (1894),  The  Tale  of 
Beowulf  (1895),  The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason,  by  William 
Morris  (1895),  and  The  Works  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer  (1896). 

Many  of  the  volumes  have  woodcuts,  chiefly  from  draw- 
ings by  Burne-Jones,  and  Morris  designed  all  the  elaborate 
initial  letters,  borders,  title-pages  and  other  decorations. 
It  would  not  be  easy  in  the  ordinary  way  to  single  out  any 
book  for  special  notice  among  so  many  masterpieces  of 
printing,  each  possessing  characteristics  of  its  own  worthy 
of  individual  praise,  but  one  book,  and  as  it  happens  the  one 
that  Morris  printed  with  his  fullest  reverence,  does  actually 
'  The  first  Kelmscott  issue  of  this  book  was  in  quarto. 


260  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

stand  out  from  among  the  rest  with  distinction.  That  book 
is  the  noble  foHo  containing  the  works  of  Chaucer  enshrined 
in  t}'pe  cast  for  the  purpose,  with  Morris's  own  superb  and 
appropriate  decorations,  and  eighty-six  illustrations  by 
Burne- Jones.  Never  was  author  paid  so  handsome  a  tribute 
as  by  this  book,  and  when  it  is  in  its  complete  form,  with 
Cobden-Sanderson's  binding,  one  is  surely  in  the  presence 
of  the  most  beautiful  and  the  best  designed  book  the  world 
has  ever  seen. 

William  Morris  was  essentially  a  decorator  ;  he  would 
have  had  every  one  of  the  fine  products  of  his  amazing 
vitality  burst  into  flower  and  leaf,  into  wondrous  device  and 
every  beauty  of  form.  Yet  in  everything  he  did  the  fine 
simplicity  of  his  nature  was  a  saving  grace.  But  with  the 
books  designed  by  Charles  Ricketts  we  find  the  expression  of 
an  entirely  different  temperament,  or  a  temperament  which 
was  assertively  personal  and  essentially  individual,  as  against 
the  democratic  and  communal  sense  of  Morris.  This  indi- 
viduality is  seen  in  most  of  the  books  of  the  Vale  Press,  and 
in  those  beautiful  volumes.  The  Dial  and  Oscar  Wilde's  The 
Sphinx  and  The  House  of  Pomegranates,  which  were  the 
immediate  forerunners  and  first  causes  of  that  Press. 

Both  William  Morris  and  Charles  Ricketts,  however,  were 
inspired  in  their  first  founts  by  the  classical  types  of  Jenson, 
in  whom  the  Roman  letter  had  its  consummation,  although 
the  deep-rooted  Gothic  spirit  of  Morris  was  naturally  not  to 
be  tied  to  that  particular  form.  The  significance  of  this 
adoption  of  the  Roman  type  lies  in  the  fact  that  although 
the  first  movable  types  were  a  standardisation  of  the  written 
missal  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  essentially  Gothic  in  char- 
acter, lettering  itself  was  of  Greek  and  Roman  origin.  In- 
deed, where  the  Teutonic  designers  departed  most  from  the 
Roman  standard,  as  they  did  in  their  capital  letters,  they 
were  not  nearly  so  successful  as  when  they  adhered  more 
strictly  to  the  earlier  forms,  as  they  did  in  their  superior 
"  lower  cases. "  Morris,  in  spite  of  his  intense  love  of  Gothic, 
fully  realised  this,  and  although  the  Kelmscott  books  in  the 
mass  reveal  beauties  suggesting  Caxton  and  Wenkyn  de 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  PRINTING         261 

Worde,  it  will  be  found  on  a  more  intimate  acquaintance 
with  them  that  the  Renaissance  has  contributed  in  no  small 
way  to  their  final  charm. 

Just  as  William  Morris,  in  Charles  Ricketts's  words,  de- 
rived inspiration  from  the  "  sunny  pages  of  the  Renaissance," 
and  finally  made  books  equal  to,  and  in  some  cases  better 
than,  the  best  books  of  the  Gothic  printers,  so  Ricketts  took 
inspiration  from  the  same  source,  and  although  the  volumes 
of  the  Vale  Press  never  quite  resemble  the  Gothic  books,  he 
has  admitted  the  value  even  to  him  of  the  products  of  the 
Kelmscott  Press.  Speaking  of  the  books  made  under  his 
supervision  before  the  establishment  of  the  Vale  Press,  he 
wrote,  in  his  Defence  of  the  Revival  of  Printing  :  "I  regret 
that  I  had  not  then  seen  The  House  of  the  Wolfings  or  The 
Roots  of  the  Mountains,  printed  for  Mr  Morris  as  early  as 
1888  ^  ;  these  might  have  initiated  me  at  the  time  to  a  better 
and  more  severe  style,  and  I  am  now  puzzled  that  my  first 
impression  of  The  Glittering  Plain,  1891  (the  first  Kelmscott 
book),  was  one  of  disappointment." 

The  earliest  of  the  Ricketts  books  were  inspired  but  not 
printed  by  the  founder  of  the  Vale  Press.  They  were  and 
are  a  standing  example  of  what  can  be  done  through  the 
ordinary  commercial  medium  when  taste  is  in  command. 
The  illustrations,  cover  designs,  end-papers,  and  general 
format  of  these  books  were  the  work  of  Ricketts  ;  and  the 
type  was  the  best  that  could  be  found  in  some  of  the  more 
responsible  printing  houses.  The  first  example  of  this  work 
is  to  be  found  in  The  Dial — a  sumptuously  printed  quarto 
magazine  first  published  at  the  Vale,  Chelsea,  in  1889  ;  No.  2 
appeared  in  February  1892  ;  No.  3  in  October  1893  ;  and 
No.  4,  which  bore  the  imprint,  "  Hacon  &  Ricketts,"  in 
1896  ;  the  fifth  and  last  number  appearing  in  1897.  The  Dial 
was  issued  under  the  joint  editorship  of  Charles  Ricketts  and 
Charles  H.  Shannon.  The  first  number  contained  an  etching 
by  Ricketts  and  a  lithograph  in  colours  and  gold,  and  twelve 
other  designs  by  him.     The  cover  was  designed  by  Shannon, 

'  The  House  of  the  Wolfings  was  printed  in  1S89,  a^nd  The  Roots  of 
the  Mountains  in  1890. 


262  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

but  was  discarded  in  subsequent  issues,  its  place  being  taken 
by  a  superior  design,  cut  as  well  as  drawn  by  Ricketts.  In 
the  second  number  the  latter  also  makes  his  first  appearance 
as  an  engraver  on  wood,  one  of  the  main  features  of  the 
volume  being  his  series  of  initial  letters,  ornaments,  head- 
pieces, and  culs-de-lampe.  In  No.  4  of  The  Dial  appeared 
two  specimen  pages  of  the  Vale  Press,  then  being  formed. 

Before  the  Press  was  established,  however,  other  important 
books  had  been  issued  under  his  supervision.  One  of  the 
earliest  of  these,  Silverpoints,  by  John  Gray,  was  published 
by  Elkin  Mathews  and  John  Lane  in  1893.  A  few  of  the 
initials  of  this  uncommon  but  elegant  volume  are  decorated, 
but  the  majority  are  simple  Roman  capitals,  the  text  of  the 
volume  being  in  italics.  Earlier  even  than  this  the  two 
artists  had  collaborated  in  the  production  of  Oscar  Wilde's 
House  of  Pomegranates,  published  by  Messrs  Osgood, 
M'llvaine  &  Co.  in  1891.  The  result  was  less  a  success  than 
a  curious  attempt  at  decorated  bookmaking ;  the  most 
successful  parts  being  the  vignettes  by  Ricketts.  Among 
other  books  of  this  period  are  the  Poems  of  Lord  de  Tabley 
and  In  the  Key  of  Blue,  by  John  Addington  Symonds,  the 
former  with  illustrations  and  cover,  the  latter  with  cover 
only,  by  Ricketts. 

All  these  books  were  more  or  less  tentative.  The  road 
towards  perfection  was  being  made ;  something  very  like 
perfection  was  reached,  however,  in  the  Daphnis  and  Chloe 
(1893),  the  Hero  and  Leander  (1894)  and  The  Sphinx  (1894)— 
the  two  first  published  by  Ricketts  &  Shannon  at  the  Vale 
Press,  the  last  by  Mr  John  Lane.  The  Daj)hnis  and  Chloe 
is  a  quarto  volume  printed  in  old-faced  pica  type  and  pro- 
fusely and  beautifully  illustrated  with  designs  and  initial 
letters  from  woodcuts.  It  is  said  to  be  "the  first  book 
published  in  modern  times  with  woodcuts  by  the  artist  in  a 
page  arranged  by  himself."  Hero  and  Leander  (Marlowe  & 
Chapman's  version)  is  an  octavo  ;  it  is  conceived  in  a  more 
restrained  key,  and  the  result  is  altogether  more  satisfying, 
in  spite  of  a  formal  hardness  in  the  setting  of  the  decorations. 
Theme  may  have  something  to  do  with  this,  just  as  it  has  in 


o  s 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  PRINTING  263 

Daphnis  and  Chloe,  where  the  lightness  of  the  subject  carries 
triumphantly  the  luxuriance  of  the  decorations.  The  Sjohinx, 
by  Oscar  Wilde,  is  the  most  remarkable  of  the  books  of  this 
period.  It  is  a  small  quarto  in  ivory-like  vellum,  with  a  rich 
design  in  gold,  printed  and  decorated  throughout  in  red, 
green  and  black.  The  exotic  mind  of  Wilde  is  revealed  in 
the  decorations  of  this  volume  more  than  in  any  other  :  the 
strange  vision  of  things,  the  imagination  that  moulds  passion- 
ate ideas  into  figures  which  are  almost  ascetic,  and  into 
arabesques  which  are  in  themselves  glimpses  and  revelations 
of  the  intricate  mystery  of  life. 

The  first  book  printed  in  the  Vale  type  was  The  Early 
Poems  of  John  Milton,  a  quarto  decorated  with  initials  and 
frontispiece,  cut  by  the  artist  on  wood.  Speaking  of  the 
frontispiece  of  this  volume,  H.  C.  Marillier  says  :  "  It  is 
interesting  to  compare  this  with  one  of  the  Kelmscott  frontis- 
pieces, in  order  to  realise  how  completely  individual  is  each 
case,  and  how  different  is  the  design  of  the  borders.  There 
is  nothing  in  all  the  flowing  tracery  of  William  Morris  which 
remotely  resembles  the  intricate  knot-work  and  geometrical 
orderliness  of  the  Milton  borders."  This  is  true,  and  a 
further  glance  at  the  Vale  Press  books  reveals  also  that  the 
inventiveness  of  Charles  Ricketts  is  much  greater  than  that 
of  William  Morris,  though  it  is  not  so  free  and,  paradoxically, 
not  so  formal.  But,  unlike  those  of  Morris,  the  Vale  designs 
do  not  convey  a  sense  of  inevitability,  a  feeling  that  the 
design  is  the  unconscious  blossoming  of  the  page. 

The  Kelmscott  books  not  only  look  as  if  letter  and  decora- 
tion had  grown  one  out  of  the  other ;  they  look  as  if  they 
could  go  on  growing.  The  Vale  Press  books,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  all  the  supersensitiveness  of  things  which  have 
been  deliberately  made  according  to  a  fastidious  though 
eclectic  taste  and  a  strict  formula.  It  is  the  difference  be- 
tween naturalness  and  refinement.  Yet  at  the  same  time, 
although  Ricketts  does  not  suggest  organic  growth  in  his 
decorated  books,  he  suggests  growth  by  segregation — by  a 
rearrangement  of  parts  which  seem  to  have  come  together 
mathematically,  or  which  are  built  up  in  counterpoint  like  a 


264  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

theme  in  musie.  Particularly  do  we  get  this  effect  from  the 
decorations  of  the  Vale  Shakespeare  and  from  many  of  the 
minor  decorated  leaves  throughout  all  the  volumes.  In 
the  use  of  leaf  figures  as  a  kind  of  super-punctuation,  an 
intellectual  process  seems  to  have  taken  the  place  of  the 
subtle  and  indefinable  taste  which  dominates  matters  of  art. 
The  leaves  seem  to  have  been  thought  into  their  places,  and 
the  result  is  not  always  happy. 

The  books  of  the  Vale  Press  have  other  qualities  which 
distinguish  them  from  those  of  other  similar  presses.  The 
Kelmscott  Press,  in  the  matter  of  bindings,  for  instance, 
confined  itself  to  vellum  and  plain  grey  boards.  The  Doves 
Press,  established  in  the  next  decade,  adhered  to  a  fine  and 
peculiar  kind  of  vellum.  The  Vale  Press  books  made  a 
departm'e  in  several  instances  by  appearing  in  daintily 
decorated  paper  boards  of  various  colours,  the  designs  hav- 
ing a  pleasant  chintz-like  effect,  more  often  to  be  met  with 
in  the  end-papers  of  some  modern  books,  but  an  obvious 
development  of  the  Italian  decorated  paper  cover.  Again 
colours,  red  and  sometimes  blue  and  green,  play  a  large  part 
in  the  pages  of  the  Vale  Press  books,  blending  with  the  black 
in  many  cases  most  satisfactorily. 

Some  fifty  books  in  all  were  produced,  and  these  covered 
a  wide  literary  field,  including  such  works  as  Landor's 
Epicurus,  Leontion  and  Ternissa  ;  Spiritual  Poems,  by  John 
Gray  ;  Fair  Rosamund,  by  Michael  Field  ;  the  poems  of  Sir 
John  Suckling ;  Shakespeare's  Songs  and  Sonnets ;  Nym- 
phidia,  by  Michael  Dra^yton  ;  Campion's  songs  ;  Emjjedocles, 
by  Matthew  Arnold ;  two  volumes  of  Blake,  and  two  of 
Keats  ;  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  sonnets  ;  Dramatic  Romances,  by 
Robert  Browning,  the  Lyrical  Poems  of  Shelley  ;  The  Ancient 
Mariner,  by  S.  T.  Coleridge  ;  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  by 
Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  ;  Ha7id  and  Soul  and  T'he  Blessed 
Damozel,  by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.  Besides  these,  certain 
volumes  illustrated  by  Lucien  Pissarro  were  issued  under  the 
imprimatur  of  the  Vale  although  printed  on  the  artist's  own 
private  press,  afterwards  to  be  known  as  the  Eragny  Press. 

The  Vale  Press  books  were  not  presumably  the  kind  of 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  PRINTING  265 

books  destined  for  an  immediate  and  wide  popularity.  Yet 
each  issue  was  speedily  taken  up  by  the  limited  public  there 
is  for  fine  examples  of  art- work,  and  the  fact  that  almost  im- 
mediately, and  sometimes  before  the  date  of  publication,  the 
volumes  were  being  quoted  in  the  book  markets  at  a  premium 
would  indicate  that  the  books  were  not  above  the  taste  of 
everybody.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  demand  for  such  books 
compared  with  that  of  the  ordinary  commercial  volume  was, 
and  is  at  any  time,  a  small  one.  At  the  same  time,  the  effect 
of  the  Vale  Press  publications  upon  the  general  taste  in  books 
has  been  more  pronounced  than  that  of  any  of  the  other 
great  presses  of  the  Eighteen  Nineties.  This  is  probably  due 
to  the  fact  that  Charles  Ricketts  not  only  at  first  worked 
through  the  ordinary  publisher,  but  that  he  had  his  work 
done  by  a  good  trade  firm  of  printers,  Messrs  Ballantyne  & 
Hanson,  and  did  not  own,  as  William  Morris  did,  his  own 
presses.  In  the  same  way  Morris  himself  had  a  marked  effect 
upon  ordinary  straightforward  printing,  by  insisting  upon 
an  intelligent  use  of  Caslon's  old-faced  type  when  supervising 
the  printing  of  his  own  prose  works.  He  knew  it  was  not 
safe  to  leave  so  important  a  matter  to  the  haphazard  of 
commerce.  The  supreme  result  of  this  concern  is  to  be  seen, 
of  course,  in  the  splendid  first  edition  of  The  Roots  of  the 
Mountains,  issued  by  Messrs  Reeves  &  Turner  and  printed 
at  the  Chiswick  Press.  The  influence  of  Charles  Ricketts' 
books  is  to  be  seen  in  many  of  the  early  publications  of  Mr 
John  Lane  and  Messrs  Dent  &  Co.  ;  and  the  latter  firm 
attempted  deliberately  to  follow  the  Kelmscott  tradition 
with  Aubrey  Beardsley's  edition  of  the  Morte  d' Arthur. 

After  the  death  of  William  Morris  and  the  conclusion  of 
the  work  of  the  Kelmscott  Press,  those  who  acted  as  Morris's 
assistants  in  the  actual  work  of  printing  joined  C.  R.  Ashbee 
of  the  Guild  of  Handicraft,  who  established  the  Essex  House 
Press,  using  a  fount  of  type  designed  by  himself.  Several 
well-printed  volumes  were  the  result  of  this  enterprise,  in- 
cluding the  Treatises  of  Benvenuto  Cellini  on  Metal  Work  and 
Sculpture,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Shakespeare's  Poems, 
Shelley's  Adonais,  and  King  Edward  VII.'s  Prayer  Book,  a 


266  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

noble  folio  printed  in  red  and  black.  Some  interesting  books 
were  also  printed  by  H.  G.  Webb  at  the  Caradoc  Press  ;  and 
a  simple  dignity  and  altogether  pleasant  result  has  been 
achieved  by  Miss  Elizabeth  C.  Yeats  in  the  books  printed  on 
the  Dun  Emer,  later  called  the  Cuala  Press,  at  Dundrum  near 
Dublin. 

But  the  most  notable  outcome  of  the  revival  of  printing 
since  the  closing  of  the  Kelmscott  and  Vale  presses  is  the 
Doves  Press,  established  in  1900  by  T.  J.  Cobden-Sanderson 
at  Hammersmith.  A  beautiful  Roman  type  was  designed  by 
Emery  Walker,  whose  genius  for  fine  craftsmanship  in  every- 
thing associated  with  the  printing  arts  made  for  the  further 
success  of  this  venture  which  has  to  its  credit  a  series  of 
books  of  unsurpassable  beauty.  The  Doves  Press,  although 
in  the  direct  line  of  descent  from  Morris,  was  to  some  extent 
a  reaction  against  decorated  page,  and  by  adhering  strictly 
to  the  formal  beauty  of  well-designed  type  and  a  well-built 
page  it  proved  that  all  the  requirements  of  good  taste,  good 
craftsmanship  and  utility  could  be  achieved.  There  is 
nothing,  for  instance,  quite  so  effective  as  the  first  page  of 
the  Doves  Bible,  with  its  great  red  initial  "I  "  dominating 
the  left-hand  margin  of  the  opening  chapter  of  Genesis  like  a 
s}'Tnbol  of  the  eternal  wisdom  and  simplicity  of  the  wonderful 
Book.  Neither  foliation  nor  arabesque  could  better  have 
introduced  the  first  verse  of  the  story  of  the  Creation  than 
this  flaming,  sword-like  initial.  This  edition  of  the  Bible  in 
itself  represents  the  last  refuge  of  the  complex  in  the  simple, 
and  stands  beside  the  Kelmscott  Chancer  without  loss  by 
comparison  in  beauty  or  workmanship. 

The  Doves  Press  came  nearer  than  the  other  private  presses 
towards  the  realisation  of  its  founder's  axiom  of  the  whole 
duty  of  typography,  which,  he  said,  was  "  to  communicate 
to  the  imagination,  without  loss  by  the  way,  the  thought  or 
image  intended  to  be  communicated  by  the  author." 


CHAPTER  XX 

BRITISH   IMPRESSIONISTS 

IN  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement 
the  average  man  was  still  unmoved  from  his  conviction 
that  art  was  an  affair  of  pictm'es.  He  even  went  so  far 
as  to  believe  that  the  new  art  movement  was  only  accident- 
ally derived  from  pictorial  art  and  would  eventually  end 
where  it  began — in  something  to  hang  on  a  wall.  He  was 
supported  in  this  belief  by  the  usual  predominance  given  to 
picture  talk  in  the  discussions  of  the  contending  art  factions. 
The  Nineties  were  very  fruitful  of  such  discussions,  inherit- 
ing as  they  did  the  still  unsettled  principles  and  contentions 
which  survived  from  the  artistic  battles  of  the  Eighties. 
These  battles  were  never  more  than  the  British  echo  of 
French  Impressionism,  but  they  were  complicated  by  the 
so-called  naturalism  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement.  The 
latter  was  largely  the  affair  of  the  preceding  thirty  years, 
and  with  the  dawn  of  the  Nineties  Pre-Raphaelitism  had 
become  an  accepted  art  convention  for  those  desirous  of 
accepting  it,  and  a  subject  of  indifference  for  the  rest. 

Whistler,  allied  with  but  apart  from  the  Impressionists, 
had  fought  the  fight  of  the  open-air  school  to  as  conclusive 
an  end  as  such  contests  ever  reach.  And  Ruskin's  ideas 
had  been  almost  entirely  diverted  into  their  more  defensible 
channels  of  craftsmanship,  George  Moore  had  been  for 
several  years  holding  aloft  the  banner  of  French  Impression- 
ism with  conspicuous  success,  in  The  Speaker  and  elsewhere, 
and  William  Ernest  Henley  had  fought  in  The  Scots  Observer 
an  equally  vigorous  and  equally  successful  battle  on  behalf 
of  the  same  ideals,  laying  stress^upon  a  realism  more  definitely 
associated  with  romance.  But  in  the  midst  of  all  this  talk 
about  paint  and  technique  and  new  methods  of  approaching 
267 


268  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

Nature,  there  was  a  very  real  undercurrent  of  philosophic 
thought  which  was  not  afraid  of  associating  pictorial  art 
with  social  life  and  action.  The  old  sanity  of  applied  art 
constantly  reasserted  itself  in  the  newer  movements. 
Whistler  also,  when  occasion  offered,  did  not  scorn  applied 
art,  as  we  know  from  his  enthusiasm  over  the  decoration  of 
the  Peacock  Room  at  Sir  James  Leyland's  house,  and  of  his 
owTi  house  in  Chelsea.  Frank  Brang^vjTi  was  as  much  in- 
clined towards  mural  painting  as  George  Frederick  Watts, 
whilst  William  Nicholson,  James  Pryde,  Dudley  Hard}^  and 
Aubrey  Beardsley  devoted  time  and  talent  to  the  creation 
of  a  national  school  of  poster  decorators.  And  the  revival 
of  the  decorated  book  gave  black  and  white  art  a  new 
sphere  of  expression. 

Even  so  uncompromising  an  advocate  of  the  framed 
picture  as  George  Moore  was  not  averse  from  discussing  the 
value  of  pictures  in  relation  to  national  life.  Speaking  of 
the  practical  utility  of  the  Impressionist  pictures  he  said  : 
"  They  would  inspire  not  only  a  desire  to  possess  beautiful 
things,  but  I  can  imagine  young  men  and  women  deriving 
an  extraordinary  desire  of  freedom  from  the  landscapes  of 
Monet  and  Sisley  :  Manet,  too.  Manet,  perhaps,  more  than 
anyone  liberates  the  mind  from  conventions,  from  pre- 
judices. He  creates  a  spirit  of  revolt  against  the  old  ;  he 
inculcates  a  desire  of  adventure.  Adam  standing  in  Eden 
looking  at  the  sun  rise  was  no  more  naked  and  unashamed 
than  Manet.  I  believe  that  a  gallery  of  Impressionist 
pictures  would  be  more  likely  than  any  other  pictures  to 
send  a  man  to  France,  and  that  is  a  great  point.  Everyone 
must  go  to  France.  France  is  the  source  of  all  the  arts. 
Let  the  truth  be  told.  We  go  there,  every  one  of  us,  like 
rag-pickers,  with  baskets  on  our  backs,  to  pick  up  the  things 
that  come  in  our  way,  and  out  of  unconsidered  trifles  fortunes 
have  often  been  made.  We  learn  in  France  to  appreciate 
not  only  art — we  learn  to  appreciate  life,  to  look  upon  life 
as  an  incomparable  gift.  In  some  cafe,  in  some  Nouvelle 
Athenes,  named  though  it  be  not  in  any  Baedeker  nor 
marked  on  any  traveller's  chart,  the  young  man's  soul  will 


u  O  .- 
o  •,  >S 

CJ    ^  "^ 


BRITISH  IMPRESSIONISTS  269 

be  exalted  to  praise  life.  Art  is  but  praise  of  life,  and  it  is 
only  through  art  that  we  can  praise  life."  Such  an  attitude 
is  inseparable  from  the  modern  art  movement,  and  it  survives 
to-day  in  the  development  of  the  decorative  arts  among  the 
Post  Impressionists. 

Conventional  pictorial  art  in  this  country  at  the  time  of 
the  modern  revolt  had  long  suffered  from  hopeless  privacy 
and  class  distinction.  Richard  Muther  says :  "  English 
painting  is  exclusively  an  art  based  on  luxury,  optimism  and 
aristocracy  ;  in  its  neatness,  cleanliness  and  good-breeding 
it  is  exclusively  designed  to  ingratiate  itself  with  English 
ideas  of  comfort.  Yet  the  pictures  have  to  satisfy  very 
different  tastes — the  taste  of  a  wealthy  middle  class  which 
wishes  to  have  substantial  nourisliment,  and  the  aesthetic 
taste  of  an  elite  class,  which  will  only  tolerate  the  quint- 
essence of  art,  the  most  subtle  art  that  can  be  given.  But 
all  these  works  are  not  created  for  galleries,  but  for  the 
drawing-room  of  a  private  house,  and  in  subject  and  treat- 
ment they  have  all  to  reckon  with  the  ascendant  view  that 
a  picture  ought,  in  the  first  place,  to  be  an  attractive  article 
of  furniture  for  the  sitting-room.  The  traveller,  the  lover 
of  antiquity,  is  pleased  by  imitation  of  the  ancient  style  ; 
the  sportsman,  the  lover  of  country  life,  has  a  delight  in  little 
rustic  scenes,  and  the  women  are  enchanted  with  feminine 
types.  And  everything  must  be  kept  within  the  bounds  of 
what  is  charming,  temperate  and  prosperous,  without  in  any 
degree  suggesting  the  struggle  for  existence.  The  pictures 
have  themselves  the  grace  of  that  mundane  refinement  from 
the  midst  of  which  they  are  beheld."  Into  some  such  con- 
dition of  pictorial  art  the  new  men  threw  themselves,  opening 
windows,  as  it  were,  and  allowing  the  outside  world,  with  all  its 
rudeness  and  all  its  unseen  and  unrealised  beauties,  to  enter. 

The  organised  revolt  took  the  form  of  protest  by  the  New 
English  Art  Club  against  the  Royal  Academy,  and  of  the 
Glasgow  School  against  the  conventions  of  the  Royal  Scottish 
Academy,  and  as  art  movements  generally  begin  elsewhere 
and  end  here,  the  battles  they  were  fighting  represented 
practically  the  end   of  the  fight  for  Impressionism.     The 


270  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

artistic  public  was  gradually  becoming  used  to  pictures  that 
were  visions  of  light  and  atmosphere  rather  than  pictorial 
anecdotes,  and  the  leaders  of  the  new  movement  were  being 
absorbed  by  both  academies.  Absorption  by  the  old  enemy 
was,  however,  not  the  fate  of  all  the  revolutionaries,  for 
several,  includhig  their  earliest  leader,  Wilson  Steer,  main- 
tained an  attitude  of  no  compromise.  Neither  did  the 
battle  with  academic  conventions  end  with  the  work  of  the 
two  groups  of  artists  named.  It  was  carried  on  into  the  new 
century  and  linked  up  with  new  movements  by  the  Inter- 
national Society  of  Painters,  Sculptors  and  Gravers,  founded, 
with  Whistler  as  President  and  Lavery  as  Vice-President, 
in  1898. 

The  outstanding  painters  of  the  Impressionist  movement 
in  this  country  represented  all  phases  of  modern  art  and 
considerable  variety  of  individual  expression.  There  were 
Walter  Sickert,  Maitland  and  Roussel,  w'ho  received  early 
inspiration  from  Whistler  ;  the  realists  of  the  Newlyn  School 
led  by  Stanhope  Forbes,  and  deriving  their  art  from  Bastien 
Lepage  ;  and  more  individual  and,  consequently,  less  easily 
classified,  such  painters  as  George  Clausen,  Jolm  S.  Sargent, 
Wilson  Steer,  William  Rothenstein,  Frank  Brang\\yn, 
William  Nicholson,  William  Orpen  and,  later  on,  Augustus 
John  ;  whilst  standing  apart  from  any  particular  "  move- 
ment," but  none  the  less  modern,  were  Charles  Conder, 
Dudley  Hardy,  Maurice  Greiffenhagen,  Robert  Fowler, 
Sidney  H.  Sime,  Charles  Ricketts  and  Charles  Shannon. 
The  Glasgow  School  included  most  of  the  Scottish  painters 
who  became  subjects  of  discussion  at  the  Grosvenor  Gallery 
Exliibition  promoted  by  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay,  on  the  sugges- 
tion of  Clausen,  in  1890.  Among  the  men  from  the  north 
who  were  either  associated  with  the  Glasgow  group  or  in 
sympathy  with  its  bid  for  freedom  were  John  Lavery,  James 
Guthrie,  Arthur  Melville,  E.  A.  Hornel,  T.  Millie  Dow,  George 
Henry,  James  Pryde,  D.  Y.  Cameron,  Harrington  Mann, 
W.  Y.  ]\Iaegregor  and,  at  a  later  date,  J.  T.  Peploe  and  John 
Duncan  Fergusson. 

Out  of  this  wealth  of  artistic  genius  it  would  be  idle  to 


BRITISH  IMPRESSIONISTS  271 

classify  or  to  associate  any  single  painter  finally  with  any 
definite  group  of  painters,  even  though  he  had  deliberately 
allied  himself  with  one  or  the  other  schools  or  coteries. 
The  really  big  men  of  the  period  can  only  be  classified  in  so 
indefinite  a  way  as  to  make  such  classification  almost  worth- 
less. The  artistic  associations  of  the  period  are  interesting 
from  another  point  of  view.  They  prove  the  existence  not 
only  of  widespread  activity  in  painting,  but  of  a  healthy  de- 
sire for  that  camaraderie  which  hitherto,  with  the  exception  of 
the  friendships  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  brotherhood,  had  been 
almost  confined  to  Paris.  But  if  classification  is  impossible 
or  unnecessary  it  is  quite  permissible  to  show  how  remark- 
ably the  artists  of  the  time  were  grouped  by  the  prevailing 
modern  tendency.  And  it  is  interesting  to  note  that, 
although  the  forward  movement  in  pictorial  art  absolved 
itself  from  all  charges  of  literariness,  its  very  existence  was 
a  part  of  that  trend  of  modern  ideas  which  was  affecting  all 
the  arts.  In  literature  the  tendency  was  called  Realism,  in 
the  graphic  arts  it  was  called  Impressionism.  In  this  book 
I  have  called  it — the  search  for  reality.  That  search  was  the 
culmination  of  all  the  activities  and  changes  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  And  in  the  last  decade  of  the  century  it  saw  the 
human  mind  fall  back  upon  individual  preference  as  the 
surest  guide  to  the  fine  arts  and  the  bigger  and  more  difficult 
art  of  life. 

Every  painter  of  the  Nineties  who  stood  for  modernity 
strove  to  use  his  own  personality  and  his  own  experience  as 
the  test  of  his  art.  He  may  have  said  that  he  would  paint 
things  as  they  are,  but  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  that  was 
an  impossible  ideal.  Those  painters  of  genius  who  had  set 
out  with  the  intention  had  ended  always  by  painting  their 
own  particular  view  of  things,  and  modern  art-philosophy 
sought  to  prove,  and  succeeded  in  proving,  that  such  results 
justified  the  means.  Auguste  Rodin,  who  is  the  greatest,  as 
well  as  the  most  realistic  and  most  personal,  of  modern 
sculptors,  insisted  upon  the  reverent  and  exact  copjdng  of 
Nature  as  a  means  towards  personal  expression.  And  as  a 
further  proof  that  naturalism  may  produce  personal  variety, 


272  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

one  has  but  to  remember  the  Pre-Raphaclites,  who  were  as 
devoted  in  the  pursuit  of  natural  exactitude  as  any  of  the 
Impressionists  ;  but,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Ford 
Madox  Brown,  they  never  produced  a  canvas  that  was  not 
romantic  and  literary,  and,  in  spite  of  the  most  devoted 
attention  to  Nature,  unnatural.  The  cause  of  this  was 
that,  whilst  talking  much  of  Nature,  they  were  not  inspired 
by  physical  reality  at  all.  They  were  essentially  a  group  of 
thinkers  and  visionaries,  and  the  whole  of  the  movement 
was  book-inspired.  It  was  the  result  of  life  approached  by 
way  of  the  Arthui'ian  and  the  Biblical  legends,  Dante  and 
Shakespeare,  and  the  observation  of  natm'al  things  always 
subserved  this  literary  interest.  The  Pi*e-Raphaelites  brought 
with  them  a  fine  aesthetic  sense  and  high  purpose,  and  some 
of  them  could  draw,  and  all  of  them  paint,  but,  without  any 
intention  of  underestimating  their  achievement,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  they  never  succeeded  in  doing  more  than  repre- 
sent in  paint  what  had  already  been  realised  in  literature. 

The  Impressionists  adopted  the  opposite  course.  They 
treated  the  art  of  painting  as  the  medium  of  actual  sight. 
What  could  be  seen  rather  than  what  could  be  thought  or 
imagined  was  the  business  of  their  art.  This  did  not  mean 
the  ultimate  eradication  of  thought  from  painting,  but  it  did 
mean  that  thought  must  take  second  place  to  vision.  Where 
thought  existed  in  the  artist  it  was  bound  to  show  in  his  work, 
but  that  work  was  primarily  a  view  of  life  arranged  in  tones 
and  values  of  colour  and  light.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Im- 
pressionist paintings  do  actually  reveal  abundance  of  thought, 
and  nowadays  it  is  quite  easy  to  see  that  the  movement  was 
even  more  intellectual  than  Pre-Raphaelitism  ;  but  never  in 
the  literary  sense.  In  this  country  Impressionism  did  not 
reach  its  logical  conclusion.  The  older  English  movement 
had  its  uncompromising  Holman  Hunt,  as  Impressionism  in 
France  had  its  Manet,  but  the  modernists  of  the  Nineties  in 
this  country  recognised  no  logic  of  progress  save  idiosyncrasy 
or  circumstance.  For  that  reason  the  period  produced  no 
convention  in  painting.  It  borrowed  much  Irom  France 
and  something  from  Germany,  it  defended  its  adopted  ideas 


BRITISH  IMPRESSIONISTS  273 

with  spirit,  it  compromised  where  and  when  it  Uked,  and  it 
argued  about  the  meaning  of  art,  sometimes  as  if  a  definition 
would  confirm  or  compel  a  renaissance.  For  the  rest,  it 
produced  many  competent  painters,  but  fewer  than  might 
have  been  expected  who  could  be  said  to  represent  the 
peculiar  genius  of  the  age. 

The  characteristic  artists  of  the  period  were  drawn  from 
no  particular  school ;  indeed,  in  many  instances  they  were 
quite  remote  from  all  definable  groups.  Aubrey  Beardsley, 
although  deriving  in  some  measure  from  Burne-Jones,  might 
easily  have  stepped  out  of  eighteenth-centiu'y  France  with 
Charles  Conder ;  Charles  Ricketts  and  Charles  Shannon, 
Robert  Fowler  and  Maurice  Greiffenhagen,  although  recall- 
ing past  influences,  have  each  sufficient  individuality  to 
stand  as  manifestations  of  the  more  definite  spirit  of  the 
period  without  in  any  single  instance  representing  all  that 
was  modern  or  strikingly  new. 

Charles  Conder  represents  perhaps  more  than  any  of 
these  artists,  except  Beardsley,  the  peculiar  artificial  mood 
of  the  Nineties.  His  work  has  the  indefinable  hot-house 
atmosphere  of  the  decadence.  The  drowsiness  of  a  replete 
civilisation  idles  through  his  paintings,  and  to  the  innate 
luxury  of  his  themes  he  added  the  material  luxury  of  the  silk 
panels  and  fans  which  he  loved  to  decorate.  Nothing  is 
decisive  about  his  vision  save  the  voluptuousness  of  doing 
nothing.  His  world  is  all  languorous  and  dreamful,  and 
there  is  no  movement  except  the  occasional  strolling  or 
dancing  of  stately  or  delicate  persons  and  the  swaying  of 
fans  ;  no  sound  save  the  rustle  of  silk  or  the  music  of  faintly 
touched  harps  or  viols  ;  no  odours  save  those  of  flowers  and 
scented  bodies  ;  and  for  place  and  bomidary  there  is  only 
colour — colour  suggesting  form,  suggesting  all  corporeal 
things,  suggesting  even  itself,  for  Conder  never  more  than 
hints  at  the  vivid  possibilities  of  life,  more  than  a  hint  might 
waken  his  puppets  from  their  Laodicean  dream.  "  Conder's 
women  are  not  timeless,"  writes  Charles  Ricketts,  "  they 
have  forgotten  their  age ;  but  this,  like  beauty,  is  often  a 
mere  matter  of  opinion  !     We  shall  find  their  histories  on  the 


274  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

stage  of  Bcaumarchais  :  they  have  passed  into  the  realms 
of  immortality  not  in  the  paintings  of  Watteau  but  in  the 
melodies  of  Mozart.  They  are  '  The  Countess, '  Susanna, 
Donna  Elvira  ;  all  are  anxious  to  pardon — they  are  peeping 
at  the  moving  pageant,  for  Don  Juan  was  seen  but  a  moment 
since.  But  what  can  have  detained  Donna  Anna  ?  It  is  so 
late,  the  '  Queen  of  the  Night '  has  sung  her  great  aria,  the 
air  is  close — there  are  too  many  roses  !  "  Too  many  roses  ! 
Charles  Conder's  art  is  in  that  phrase.  It  is  the  art  of  the 
privileged,  recalling  the  decadent  folk  who  were  the  prey  of 
the  Morlocks  in  H.  G.  Wells'  romance.  Watteau,  Fragonard 
and  Monticelli  have  each  contributed  something  towards  the 
making  of  this  delicate  art,  but,  as  Ricketts  points  out,  "  the 
rest  of  his  art  is  modern,  and  was  possible  only  at  the  time  in 
which  it  appeared. "  If  the  Fetes  Galantes  of  Watteau  became 
literature  in  Paul  Verlaine,  they  were  translated  back  into  paint- 
ing by  Charles  Conder;  and  both  he  and  the  poet  added  to  them 
their  own  special  sense  of  the  world-weariness  of  modernity. 

Equally  characteristic  of  the  Nineties,  but  of  a  more  virile 
type,  were  James  Pryde  and  William  Nicholson.  Pryde 
took  the  life  about  him  as  his  model,  the  town  folk  and  the 
country  folk,  and  with  power  and  originality  made  them  live 
again  in  paint.  Nicholson  saw  both  the  countryside  and  the 
town  with  a  new  vision  which  combined  when  transferred  to 
his  canvases  reticence  of  colour  and  power  of  suggestion. 
During  the  period  his  masterly  series  of  woodcuts  in  colour 
were  widely  known  and  appreciated  at  first  through  the 
series  of  portraits  in  The  New  Review,  and  later  in  such 
volumes  as  London  Types  and  the  Almanack  of  Twelve  Sports. 
It  was  Pryde  and  Nicholson,  under  the  title  of  the  Beggar- 
staff  Brothers,  who  gave  the  poster  movement,  already  well 
established  in  France,  something  like  a  firm  basis  in  this 
country.  They  were  not  alone  in  the  field,  but  it  was  their 
work  which  made  British  genius  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  a  peculiarly  modern  branch  of  art.  Each  had  studied  in 
Paris  and  had  doubtless  come  under  the  spell  of  the  striking 
poster  work  of  Toulouse-Lautrec,  but  the  designs  afterwards 
produced  by  them  were  in  no  sense  imitative.     Indeed,  as 


The  Arrival  of  Prince  Charming 

By  Charles  Conder 
From  the  picture  in  the  possession  of  Mi:  Grant  Richards 


BRITISH  IMPRESSIONISTS  275 

Charles  Hiatt  has  pointed  out,  their  posters  were  intensely 
English  in  character.  "In  their  way,"  he  said,  "they  are 
as  racy  of  the  soil  as  the  caricatures  of  Rowlandson,  the 
paintings  of  Morland,  or  the  drawings  of  Charles  Keene." 
The  work  of  the  Beggarstaff  Brothers  was  first  seen  at  the 
Poster  Exhibition  held  at  the  Royal  Aquarium,  Westminster, 
in  1894.  Their  exhibit  included  the  masterly  Hamlet, 
stencilled  in  four  colours,  and  a  number  of  sketches  and 
studies  for  posters  of  all  kinds.  The  attractive  use  of  simple 
masses  of  colour  without  shading,  in  fine,  the  entirely 
successful  application  of  the  idea  of  the  stencil  to  poster 
work,  made  the  artists  famous  at  a  bound,  and  their  posters 
became  familiar  and  altogether  satisfying  features  of  the 
street  hoardings.  It  is  worth  recording,  however,  that  al- 
though the  Beggarstaff  Brothers  won  so  much  appreciation, 
there  were  people  who  could  see  nothing  but  blotches  of 
paint  in  the  new  work.  This  may  be  illustrated  by  a  story 
told  of  an  early  adventure  of  the  artists  with  a  client.  The 
Beggarstaff  Brothers  had  been  commissioned  to  produce 
a  poster  for  the  Drury  Lane  Pantomime,  1895-1896.  The 
result  was  that  classic  among  posters,  the  Cinderella.  But 
the  work  did  not  find  favour  with  Sir  Augustus  Harris  ;  and 
the  famous  manager  was  supported  in  his  dislike  by  Dan 
Leno,  who  thought  the  poster  looked  as  though  someone  had 
spilt  ink  down  it.  The  situation  was  saved  by  the  fortunate 
arrival  of  Phil  May,  who,  realising  the  state  of  affairs,  turned 
the  position  by  innocently  congratulating  Sir  Augustus  on 
having  been  so  fortunate  in  obtaining  such  an  effective 
advertisement. 

The  chief  characteristics  of  painting  in  the  Nineties  were 
personal  courage  and  adventurous  technique.  Years  of 
strife  with  convention  had  at  length  cleared  a  path  for  free 
play  in  both,  and,  although  skirmishing  still  continued,  those 
who  desired  to  be  themselves  in  paint  had  at  least  as  much 
encouragement  as  their  brothers  in  the  literary  camp. 

The  works  of  painters  who  thought  and  dreamt  about  life 
were,  of  course,  as  numerous  as  ever,  but  no  exhibition  was 
complete  without  specimens  of  the  work  of  those  painters 


276  THE  EICxHTEEN  NINETIES 

who  added  to  thought  and  imagination  the  revived  faculty 
of  careful  observation.  And  even  modern  artists  who  re- 
mained visionaries  and  dreamers  adopted  a  symbolism  of 
form  and  colour  which  possessed  a  new  delicacy  and  an 
approximation  to  observed  knowledge  in  keeping  with  the 
tendencies  of  the  period  though  of  earlier  inspiration. 
Ricketts  and  Charles  Shannon  achieved  rare  qualities  of 
imaginative  expression  with  fine  technique ;  Maurice 
Greiffenhagen  and  Robert  Fowler  gave  Impressionism  a 
romantic  meaning,  and  symbolism  found  exponents  in  these 
painters  and  others,  and  in  the  work  of  many  black  and  white 
artists  and  pen-draughtsmen.  But  the  final  pictorial 
achievement  of  the  period  is  not  to  be  found  in  one  artist, 
but  in  many  ;  perhaps  not  in  any  painter  or  group  of  painters, 
but  in  the  fresh  possibilities  of  vision  thrown  open  by  the 
whole  artistic  effort  of  the  decade,  possibilities  which  led 
always  to  the  most  modern  of  all  accomplishments — the  art 
of  looking  at  life  in  one's  own  way. 

It  is  not  easy  to  single  out  painters  from  among  the  large 
number  contributing  to  this  movement,  but  a  fair  idea  of  the 
more  normal  tendencies  which  have  survived  from  the  time 
may  be  acquired  by  a  consideration  of  three  typical  Jin  de 
siecle  artists  whose  work  has  maintained  its  high  quality 
and  distinction  down  to  to-day.  These  painters  are  John 
Lavery,  William  Rothenstein  and  Frank  Brangwyn.  Each 
of  them  represents  a  compromise  with  Impressionism.  They 
are  Impressionists,  each  in  his  own  wa}^,  but  the  way  of  each 
is  to  add  to  an  essentially  realistic  idea  some  personal  quality 
which  prevents  that  idea  ever  reaching  its  full  logical  con- 
clusion. Lavery  is  in  the  Velasquez-Whistler  descent,  and 
he  possesses  technical  reserves  which  might,  had  he  been  a 
Frenchman,  have  urged  him  into  the  camp  of  scientific  Im- 
pressionism. He  preferred  to  use  his  modern  skill,  and  all 
that  modernity  had  taught  him  in  the  way  of  vision,  in  mat- 
ing reality  with  sentiment.  He  lacks  Whistler's  decorative 
sense,  and  even  when  he  is  most  realistic  he  never  achieves 
the  frankness  of  a  Manet  or  a  Degas.  But  taking  what  he 
wants  from  reality,  and  adding  what  he  pleases  from  hmnan 


BRITISH  IMPRESSIONISTS  277 

sentiment  (which  is  also  reality),  he  has  created  a  series  of 
paintings  with  some  of  the  technical  qualities  of  Whistler's 
portraits,  but  nothing  of  that  profound  sense  of  character 
which  immortalises  those  works, 

William  Rothenstein  carries  Impressionism  further  than 
Lavery,  and  instead  of  sentiment  he  adds  a  remarkably  keen 
sense  of  reality  to  thoughtfulness  and  spirituality.  His 
pictures  are  interpretations.  In  all  of  them  intellect  plays 
an  important  part ;  but  he  is  too  much  of  an  artist  ever  to 
allow  mind  finally  to  dominate  imagination  or  vision.  He 
recalls  George  Frederick  Watts  in  his  concern  for  what  is 
lofty  in  thought  and  inspiring  in  idea,  although  he  has  never 
illustrated  abstract  ideas  after  the  manner  of  Watts,  nor 
are  his  pictures  didactic.  His  works  impress  by  quiet  pro- 
fundity of  theme  and  fine  qualities  of  light  and  colour.  His 
test  for  art,  as  expressed  in  the  introductory  chapter  of  his 
essay  on  Goya  (1900),  can  be  applied  with  success  to  his  own 
pictures  :  "  For  however  many  reasons  men  may  give  for 
the  admiration  of  masterpieces,"  he  said,  "  it  is  in  reality  the 
probity  and  intensity  with  which  the  master  has  carried  out 
his  work,  by  which  they  are  dominated  ;  and  it  is  his  method 
of  overcoming  difficulties,  not  of  evading  them,  which  gives 
style,  breadth  and  becoming  mystery  to  his  execution.  And 
this  quality  of  intensity,  whether  it  be  the  result  of  curiosity 
for  form,  or  of  a  profound  imagination  for  nature,  which 
lives,  as  it  were,  upon  the  surface  of  a  drawing,  or  of  a  picture, 
is  the  best  test  we  have  for  what  we  may  consider  as  art." 
Rothenstein  has  many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Nineties 
— curiosity  about  life  and  thought,  personality  in  vision  and 
statement,  and  that  sincerity  of  aim  which  is  originality  ; 
but  he  is  never  decadent,  if  only  for  the  reason  that  he  never 
looked  upon  art  as  a  thing  in  itself,  but  as  a  means  towards 
the  fulfilment  of  life. 

Impressionism  and  romanticism  meet  in  the  art  of  Frank 
Brangwyn,  as  Impressionism  and  sentiment  meet  in  that  of 
John  Lavery,  and  Impressionism  and  intellect  in  Rothen- 
stein. But  more  than  that — a  picture  by  Brangwyn  is  a 
bridge  between  private  luxury  and   public  splendour.     His 


278  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

art  suggests  the  big  virile  world  rnade  splendid  by  the 
romance  of  action.  His  pictures,  even  his  etchings,  seem  to 
have  small  relationship  with  what  are  called  the  fine  arts  ; 
they  are  not  to  be  associated  with  dainty  things  :  the  bric- 
a-brac  of  drawing-rooms  and  the  baubles  of  collectors  and 
connoisseurs.  Brangwyn's  work  has  no  connection  with 
such  things.  He  is  as  far  removed  from  them  as  Walt 
Whitman  is  from  the  writers  of  drawing-room  love  lyrics. 
Everything  about  his  work  is  large  and  vigorous.  His  vivid 
colours,  his  heroic  masses  of  form,  his  bold  lighting,  even 
apart  from  any  bigness  of  canvas,  suggest  the  public  place 
rather  than  the  room.  Frank  Brangwyn  is,  in  fact,  a  decora- 
tive painter.  Impressionism  in  its  less  imaginative  aspects 
hardly  touched  him  ;  he  learnt  from  it  what  all  artists  could 
learn  without  endangering  imagination  or  individual  genius 
— the  use  of  light  in  relation  to  colour  and  form.  And  this 
knowledge  he  applied  to  his  own  inborn  sense  of  design  in 
the  creation  of  those  richly  patterned  mural  paintings  which 
in  themselves  are  little  short  of  an  artistic  renaissance. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  three  examples  that  the  painters 
of  the  period  were  wide-ranged  in  vision.  Yet  even  they 
symbolise  little  more  than  the  broad  and  normal  phases  of 
painting.  Such  painters,  to  name  but  three  more,  as  Walter 
Sickert,  James  Pryde  and  E.  A.  Hornel,  are  as  different  in 
every  way  from  Lavery,  Rothenstein  and  Brangwyn,  as  they 
are  from  one  another.  But  they  also  represent  the  period. 
Sickert  by  his  mastery  over  his  materials  and  by  the  indi- 
viduality of  his  outlook  ;  Pryde  by  equal  mastery  and  equal 
individuality  in  addition  to  rare  insight  into  character  ;  and 
Hornel  by  his  unique  sense  of  decoration  and  colour.  Such 
variety  among  painters  was  hitherto  unknown  in  this 
country,  and  apart  from  the  vitality  it  reveals,  it  indicates 
also  a  complete  victory  over  academic  convention,  and  the 
creation  of  such  a  margin  of  freedom  as  would  permit  of 
any  painter  thenceforth  expressing  himself  in  his  own  way. 
This  freedom,  subject  of  battle  for  several  decades,  was 
consummated  in  the  Nineties. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


IN    BLACK    AND    WHITE 


IN  no  other  branch  of  pictorial  art  was  there  so  much 
activity  during  the  whole  of  the  period,  and,  on  the 
whole,  so  much  undisputed  excellence,  as  in  the  various 
pen  and  pencil  drawings  which  blossomed  from  innumerable 
books  and  periodicals.  To  a  considerable  extent  this  re- 
markable efflorescence  of  an  art  which  had  remained  passive 
for  so  many  years  was  an  offshoot  of  the  renaissance  of 
decorative  art.  But  not  entirely  was  this  so,  for  there  were 
notable  developments  also  among  those  artists  who  were 
content  to  illustrate  a  theme  in  the  usual  nineteenth-century 
manner  without  any  regard  for  the  appearance  of  the  printed 
page.  These  artists  were  not  concerned  with  the  ultimate 
balance  and  proportion  of  a  book  as  a  work  of  art ;  their 
business  was  interpretative,  and  their  medium,  pictures,  and 
they  considered  it  an  achievement  to  make  drawings  which, 
whilst  serving  their  immediate  illustrative  purpose,  remained 
in  themselves  separate  and  even  independent  pictures.  The 
two  tendencies  in  black  and  white  art  had  existed  side  by 
side  in  the  past ;  generally,  however,  one  was  degenerating 
whilst  the  other  was  developing  in  power.  But  in  the  Nineties 
both  achieved  a  distinction  rarely,  if  ever,  attained  before, 
either  individually  or  together.  The  Italian  Renaissance  had 
its  great  decorated  books,  and  many  years  later  the  Victorian 
period  produced  a  group  of  ingenious  and  capable  wood- 
engravers,  who  often  strove  to  recapture  the  lost  decorative 
sense,  but  without  much  success.  Whilst  the  Renaissance 
had  no  illustrators  as  we  understand  them,  the  Victorian 
period  could  boast  such  masterly  comic  artists  in  black  and 
white  as  John  Leech,  Charles  Keene  and  George  du  Maurier. 
But  at  no  other  time  were  there  existing  in  this  country  such 
279 


280  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

book  decorators  as  William  Morris,  Walter  Crane,  Charles 
Rieketts,  Laurence  Housman  and  Aubrey  Bcardsley, 
together  with  such  illustrators  as  Phil  May,  S.  H.  Sime, 
Bernard  Partridge,  Linley  Sambourne,  Harry  Furniss, 
Raven  Hill  and  E.  J.  Sullivan.  It  was  left  for  the  final 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  show,  in  an  outburst  of 
ability  as  prolific  as  it  was  varied,  the  full  strength  of  our 
native  genius  for  all  forms  of  black  and  white  art,  just  as 
earlier  in  the  century  we  exhibited  a  similar  facility  in  the 
art  of  landscape  painting. 

The  idea  of  book  decoration  which  developed  to  so  great 
an  extent  in  the  Nineties  was,  of  course,  closely  related  to 
the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement  and  the  revival  of  good  print- 
ing. But  with  the  exception  of  William  Morris  and  Charles 
Rieketts  few  designers  had  facilities  for  that  intimate 
association  with  reproductive  methods  which  was  considered 
so  essential.  The  application  of  photography  to  pictorial, 
reproductive  processes  further  aided  in  widening  this  breach 
between  designer  and  producer  and  helped  to  create  a  separ- 
ate class  of  decorative  book  illustrators  who  were  personally 
independent  of  the  crafts  of  reproduction.  The  weaknesses 
of  the  decorated  books  of  the  period  are  due  rather  to  this 
separation  of  art  and  craft  than  to  any  absence  of  capacity 
on  either  side.  The  aim  of  the  book  decorators,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  best  printers,  was  to  produce  designs  which  should 
not  be  beautiful  merely  in  themselves  but  beautiful  in  their 
relationship  to  the  whole  of  the  book — both  from  the  point 
of  view  of  appearance  and  idea.  "  I  think,"  wrote  Walter 
Crane,  in  Decorative  Illustration  (1896),  "that  book  illustra- 
tion should  be  something  more  than  a  collection  of  accidental 
sketches.  Since  one  cannot  ignore  the  constructive  organic 
element  in  the  formation^the  idea  of  the  book  itseli'— it  is 
so  far  inartistic  to  leave  it  out  of  account  in  designing  work 
intended  to  form  an  essential  or  integral  part  of  that  book. 
I  do  not,  however,  venture  to  assert  that  decorative  illustra- 
tion can  only  be  done  in  owe  way — if  so,  there  would  be  an 
end  in  that  direction  to  originality  or  individual  feeling. 
There  is  nothing  absolute  in  art,  and  one  cannot  dogmatise, 


A  Voluptuary 

■  To  rise,  to  take  a  little  opium,  to  sleep  till  lunch,  and  after  again  to  take  a 
little  opiiiTii,  and  sleep  till  dinner,  that  is  ,1  life  of  pleasure." 

Bv  I..  Raven  Hill 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  281 

but  it  seems  to  me  that  in  all  designs  certain  conditions  must 
be  acknowledged,  and  not  only  acknowledged  but  accepted 
freely,  just  as  one  would  accept  the  rules  of  a  game  before 
attempting  to  play  it."  In  short,  the  desire  of  those  il- 
lustrators who  were  at  all  conscious  of  any  special  desire 
as  designers  was  for  formality  within  the  convention  and 
circumstances  of  the  printed  book. 

Throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  century  the  tradition 
of  the  decorated  book  had  been  allowed  to  lapse.  The 
actual  renaissance  of  book  decoration  began  when  the  leaders 
of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti, 
John  Everett  Millais  and  Holman  Hunt,  made  their  illustra- 
tions for  the  famous  edition  of  Tennyson's  Poems,  published 
by  Moxon  in  1857.  This  book  was  not,  however,  a  decorated 
book  in  the  true  sense,  but  its  illustrations  were  essentially 
designs  in  spirit.  The  modern  decorated  book  itself  w^as 
not  born  until  1861,  when  Rossetti  designed  the  title-page  of 
his  Early  Italian  Poets.  No  great  enthusiasm  was  shown  for 
the  revived  art,  and  for  some  years  the  deliberate  arrange- 
ment of  book  illustrations  in  the  form  of  design  was  practic- 
ally confined  to  the  admirable  series  of  children's  books 
invented  by  Kate  Greenaway  and  Walter  Crane  and,  to 
some  extent,  those  of  Randolph  Caldecott.  During  the  late 
Eighties  and  early  Nineties  The  English  Illustrated  Magazine 
helped  to  satisfy  a  growing  ta,ste  for  formal  illustration,  and 
Herbert  Home  and  Selwyn  Image  anticipated  somewhat  the 
future  glories  of  the  Kelmscott  and  Vale  presses,  in  the  hand- 
some and  dignified  pages  of  The  Hobby  Horse.  Then  came 
the  books  of  the  presses  named,  as  recorded  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  and  presently  publishers  were  competing  with  one 
another  in  the  production  of  decorated  books,  a  remarkable 
and  distinguished  number  being  issued  during  the  years 
under  review. 

It  was  Walter  Crane  more  than  any  other  artist  who 
consistently  and  indomitably  carried  the  torch  of  book 
decoration  through  the  dark  days  preceding  the  full  revival. 
Influenced  by  Durer  and  the  early  German  wood-engravers, 
he  developed  mastery  and  individuality  of  his  own.     The 


282  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

decorative  sense  is  given  freedom  in  his  work,  with  the  result 
that  his  drawings  are  ahvays  uneonipromising  designs  in 
strict  relation  to  the  book  of  which  they  become  parts. 
There  are  no  illustrated  books  of  the  Nineties  which  satisfy 
the  demands  of  decorative  art  more  eloquently  than  Crane's 
Faerie  Qiieene,  Reynard  the  Fox  and  The  Slieplierd's  Calendar. 
In  each  of  these  the  achievement  is  greater  because  the 
artist  succeeds  in  freeing  himself  from  the  convention  of  the 
decorated  manuscripts  by  fashioning  his  design  to  that  of 
the  modem  printed  page.  He  thus  escaped  the  archaic  tend- 
encies of  William  Morris  and  Burne  Jones  and  became  more 
definitely  associated  with  the  younger  school  of  draughts- 
men who  were  striving  to  put  the  spirit  of  modernity  into 
their  work.  His  designs  were  also  used  in  an  effective  series 
of  Socialist  cartoons,  notable  among  which  is  the  fine  pro- 
cessional work  "The  Triumph  of  Labour,"  designed  to 
commemorate  the  International  Labour  Day,  1st  May  1891, 
and  other  examples  of  his  black  and  white  drawings  are  to  be 
found  on  the  covers  of  books,  and  in  several  notable  devices 
for  publishing  and  other  trading  concerns. 

Walter  Crane's  decorative  drawings  had  a  marked  effect  on 
the  younger  men  of  the  period,  but  the  influence  stimulated 
the  general  decorative  movement  in  regard  to  illustration 
rather  than  imitation  of  the  master. 

Book  decoration  was  striving  to  become  modem  at  the 
time  the  Kelmseott  Press  was  started  just  as  vigorously 
as  Morris  strove  to  link  it  with  tradition.  There  was  no  set 
contest  between  the  conflicting  ideas  and  the  original  Pre- 
Raphaelite,  and  Arts  and  Crafts  influences  were  too  recent 
for  the  clear  definition  of  any  line  of  demarcation  by  in- 
trinsically contending  factions.  The  whole  of  the  decorative 
revival  was  under  the  spell  of  Morris  and  the  group  of  painters 
and  poets  who  in  turn  influenced  him.  Walter  Crane, 
though  so  closely  associated  with  William  Morris,  came  less 
under  his  influence  as  a  book  decorator  than  might  have  been 
expected,  and  both  Charles  Ricketts  and  C.  H.  Shannon 
worked  out  original  ideas  in  design.  So  modem  a  designer 
as  Aubrey  Beardsley  came,  however,  under  the  prevailing 


I 


I 
I 


,.xr>^y^l2 


Illustration  fro.m  "  7//E  Faerie  Qceexe" 

Bv  Walter  Crane 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  283 

influence  ;  and  Laurence  Housman  could  hardly  have  decor- 
ated so  well  had  not  Morris  and  Ricketts  preceded  him. 
The  arabesque  borders  of  William  Macdougal  were  more 
modem  in  spirit,  though  less  satisfying  in  effect,  and  the 
happy  pictures  and  head-pieces  and  tail-pieces  of  Charles 
Robinson,  as  well  as  the  vigorous  Japonesque  decorations  of 
Edgar  Wilson,  were  altogether  novel  and  appropriate,  as 
were  those  also  of  H.  Granville  Fell.  But  it  was  R.  Anning 
Bell  who  caught  the  more  fanciful  decorative  spirit  of  the 
times  with  his  drawings  for  A  Midsummer'' s  Nights'  Dream 
(1895),  and  other  books,  including  a  volume  of  Keats'  Poems. 
In  these  drawings  Anning  Bell  departed  from  the  luxuriant 
effects  of  Morris,  Crane,  Ricketts  and  Beardsley,  and,  work- 
ing in  the  realm  of  fancy,  succeeded  in  producing  illustra- 
tions which  bridged  the  decorative  and  the  pictorial  methods, 
whilst  retaining  a  designed  balance  with  the  printed  page. 

Whilst  the  decoration  of  books  was  striving  for  modem 
expression  in  this  country,  the  Scottish  group  of  artists, 
working  with  Patrick  Geddes  at  Edinburgh,  produced  many 
designs  which  were  at  once  strong  and  new,  although  in 
some  instances  based  in  curious  and  remote  arabesques  of 
Runic  origin.  Symbolism  was  the  aim  of  these  artists, 
and  the  clever  head-pieces  and  tail-pieces  of  The  Evergreen 
were  faithfully  drawn  ' '  after  the  manner  of  Celtic  orna- 
ment." Excellent  and  more  illustrative  designs  were  con- 
tributed to  the  same  publication  by  Charles  H.  Mackie, 
Robert  Bums,  Pittendrigh  Macgillivray  and  John  Duncan. 
Later  in^  the  period  the  fantastic  work  of  Jessie  M.  King 
came  from  Scotland,  revealing  a  novel  sense  of  fanciful 
design  based  largely  upon  the  Japanese  and  showing  also 
the  influence  of  Beardsley.  Ireland  produced  no  group  of 
Celtic  designers,  but  the  work  of  Althea  Giles,  with  its 
curiously  exotic  symbolism,  won  the  enthusiastic  apprecia- 
tion of  W.  B.  Yeats,  and  the  poet's  brother.  Jack  Yeats, 
began  to  make  those  excellent  and  delightful  wood-blocks 
which  have  all  the  qualities  of  designs  without  losing  any  of 
the  characteristics  of  pictures.  Nor  had  definite  symbolism 
in  black  and  white  decorative  art  many  exponents  in  this 


284  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

country.  The  most  notable,  and  he  conies  hardly  within 
the  delinition  of  a  decorator,  was  W.  T.  Ilorton,  who,  with 
extraordinary  economy  of  materials,  the  briefest  of  lines  and 
the  flattest  masses  of  black,  produced  startling  revelations 
of  human  types  in  the  very  few  designs  he  published. 

A  notable  contribution  to  the  ornamental  book  decora- 
tions of  the  period  was  made  by  a  group  of  artists  in  the 
Midlands.  Originally  students  at  the  Birmingham  School  of 
Art,  these  young  men  and  women,  inspired  by  the  work  and 
ideals  of  the  elder  group  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  movement, 
worked  diligently  within  the  limits  of  conventional  design. 
They  discountenanced  any  book  illustrations  of  a  realistic 
type  by  relegating  these  to  the  portfolio  or  the  picture  frame. 
Many  books  of  fairy  tales,  old  romances  and  poetry  were 
decorated  by  them,  with  varying  success,  and  their  aims 
and  aspirations  were  set  forth  in  a  magazine  of  their  own, 
called  The  Quest.  William  Morris  thought  so  highly  of  the 
Birmingham  School  of  decorators  that  he  engaged  three  of 
its  draughtsmen,  E.  H.  New,  C.  M.  Gere  and  Arthur  Gaskin, 
to  design  illustrations  for  some  of  the  Kelmscott  Press  books. 
In  the  main  the  artists  of  this  school  had  little  connection 
with  modern  life.  The  bulk  of  their  designs  were  deliber- 
ately archaic,  being  based  upon  the  work  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  century  wood-engravers,  and  what  modem 
spirit  they  possessed  was  little  more  than  an  echo  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  movement  and  its  associates  and  dependants. 
Among  the  more  notable  members  of  the  group,  besides  the 
three  artists  named  above,  were  Inigo  Thomas,  Hemy  Payne, 
L.  Fairfax  Muckley,  Bernard  Sleigh,  Maiy  Newill,  Celia 
Levetus  and  Mrs  Arthur  Gaskin.  There  can  be  small  doubt, 
however,  that  the  most  satisfying  and  most  original  draughts- 
man of  the  group  was  E.  H.  New.  His  studies  of  old  streets 
and  buildings  united  the  ideas  of  book  decoration  and  illus- 
tration in  a  successful  and  altogether  pleasing  way,  and  they 
remain  something  more  than  the  expressions  of  a  revived 
method  of  decoration. 

The  revival  of  conventional  book  decoration  did  not  pass 
unchallenged,  as  may  be  imagined  at  a  time  when  there  were 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  285 

so  many  vigorous  black  and  white  artists  of  all  types  striving 
for  recognition.  One  of  the  most  authoritative  and  most 
reasonable  pronouncements  of  the  opposition  was  that  made 
by  Joseph  Pennell  in  the  1897  edition  of  Pen  Drawing  and  Pen 
Draughtsmen.  "Decoration  is  appropriateness,"  he  wrote, 
"  and  it  really  makes  no  difference  whether  it  is  realistic 
or  conventional,  so  long  as  it  improves  the  appearance 
of  the  page.  But  at  the  same  time  I  consider  the  modern 
thoroughly  developed  realistic  work  in  its  best  form  superior 
to  that  of  the  old  men,  because  it  shows  most  plainly  the 
advances  we  have  made  in  knowledge  and  technique.  .  .  . 
Nowhere  for  the  moment  will  such  a  statement  be  questioned, 
except  in  this  country.  But  here,  within  the  last  thirty 
years,  people  have  been  continuously  taught  to  believe  that 
book  decoration,  like  all  other  art  work,  to  be  artistic  must 
have  a  spiritual,  moral,  social,  political,  literary  or  sixteenth- 
century  value,  while  beauty  of  line  and  perfection  of  execu- 
tion have  been  subordinated  to  these  qualities  ;  as  a  result 
the  many  pay  no  attention  to  the  real  artistic  merits  or 
defects  of  a  drawing,  but  simply  consider  it  from  an  entirely 
inartistic  standpoint.  The  excuse  is  the  elevation  of  the 
masses  and  the  reformation  of  the  classes.  Art  will  never 
accomplish  either  of  these  desirable  ends,  its  only  function 
being  to  give  pleasure,  but  this  pleasure  will  be  obtained 
from  good  work  produced  in  any  fashion.  If  the  work  is 
equally  well,  or,  as  usually  happens,  better  done  in  a  modem 
style,  it  will  give  more  pleasure  to  a  greater  number  simply 
because  it  mil  be  far  more  widely  understood."  But  the 
distinction  was  not  finally  between  realistic  and  conventional 
decoration  ;  it  was  between  the  ideas  of  decoration  in  the 
abstract  and  illustration  in  the  abstract.  During  the 
Nineties  there  were  few  naturalistic  decorators  of  books,  and 
this  was  due  probably  to  the  emphasis  Avhich  had  been  laid 
upon  the  independence  of  all  naturalistic  art  from  anything 
but  its  own  materials  and  its  own  rules  of  excellence.  The 
problem  of  filling  the  space  of  a  book-page  in  such  a  way  as 
to  produce  harmony  and  pleasing  proportion  was  therefore 
left  to  the  decorative  reformers  who,  to  a  man,  were  inspired 


286  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

by  a  mediaeval  idea.  The  results  are  to  be  seen  in  the  archaic 
but  admirably  illustrated  books  of  the  time,  which,  in  their 
own  realm  of  decoration,  are  sufficient  defences  against  any 
criticism  that  has  been,  or  may  be,  passed  upon  them. 

The  other  branch  of  the  art  was  none  the  less  remarkable 
in  its  own  sphere,  and  under  conditions  of  almost  unlimited 
personal  freedom  in  choice  of  method  it  naturally  encouraged 
originality  undreamt  of  (and  seemingly  undesired)  in  the 
purely  decorative  schools.  Every  phase  of  life  found  its 
pictorial  exponents,  in  spite  of  the  serious  limitations  im- 
posed by  the  introduction  of  photography  into  press  and 
book  illustrations.  Where  the  camera  could  not  operate,  in 
for  instance  the  realm  of  character  study  and  humour,  the 
modern  genius  for  pen  dramng  produced  surprising  and 
masterly  results.  The  most  notable  of  these,  and  admittedly 
the  fmest  pen  draughtsmanship  of  the  time,  were  the 
drawings  of  Phil  May. 

This  universally  appreciated  artist,  bom  at  New  Wortley, 
Leeds,  in  1864,  was  the  son  of  an  engineer.  His  earliest 
ambition  was  to  be  a  jockey,  but  the  wish  was  not  gratified, 
for  when  quite  a  child  he  was  employed  as  timekeeper  in  a 
foundry.  There  were  theatrical  associations  in  the  family 
on  his  mother's  side,  and  these  led  to  the  boy,  whose  aptitude 
with  the  pencil  developed  early,  being  employed  as  an  assist- 
ant scene  painter  and  odd-job  boy  at  a  Leeds  theatre. 
Subsequently  he  became  an  actor,  playing  juvenile  parts  in 
a  touring  company.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  set  out  for 
London  and  fortune,  but  hardship  drove  him  back  to  Leeds, 
where  he  practically  began  his  association  with  pictorial 
journalism  by  contributing  drawings  to  a  local  paper  called 
Yorkshire  Gossip.  He  married  at  the  early  age  of  nineteen, 
and  again  returned  to  try  his  fortune  in  London,  where  ill 
luck  greeted  him  once  more.  After  suffering  extreme 
poverty,  a  caricature  of  his,  depicting  Bancroft,  Irving  and 
Toole  leaving  the  Garrick  Club,  which  was  published  by  a 
print-seller  in  Charing  Cross  Road,  attracted  the  attention  of 
Lionel  Brough,  the  actor,  who  bought  the  original  and  intro- 
duced May  to  the  editor  of  Society.     This  led  to  work  and 


I'Hii.  May 

By  spy 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  287 

opened  up  avenues  for  the  further  development  of  his  career 
in  the  pages  of  The  St  Stephen's  Review,  where  some  of  the 
best  of  his  early  drawings  appeared.  But  the  artist's  health 
broke  down,  and  he  was  forced  to  leave  England  for  Australia. 
There  he  remained  from  1885  to  1888,  becoming  one  of  the 
most  popular  contributors  to  TJie  Sydney  Bulletin.  On  his 
return  to  Europe  he  studied  art  for  a  while  in  Paris,  and  from 
there  renewed  his  connection  with  The  St  Stephen's  Review, 
contributing  his  first  popularly  successful  series  of  drawings, 
"The  Parson  and  the  Painter."  This  series  appeared  as  a 
book  in  1891.  When  he  returned  to  London  in  1892  he 
found  himself  a  famous  humorous  artist,  and  started  the 
immensely  popular  Winter  Annuals,  which  were  published 
regularly  for  eleven  years.  He  now  contributed  drawings 
to  many  papers,  including  The  Graphic,  Tlie  Daily  Grajjhic. 
Tlie  Pall  Mall  Budget,  The  Sketch,  Pick-me-up,  and  in  1896 
he  joined  the  staff  of  Punch.  Among  his  more  important 
separate  publications  were,  Phil  May's  Sketch  Book  (1895)  ; 
Guttersnipes  (1896) ;  Graphic  Pictures  (1897)  ;  Fifty  Hitherto 
Unpublished  Pen  and  Ink  Sketches  and  The  Phil  May  Album 
(1899).  During  the  greater  part  of  this  time  Phil  May  was 
the  undisputed  king  of  pictorial  humorists  in  this  country. 
His  sketches  were  a  characteristic  of  the  period,  and  prob- 
ably no  other  black  and  white  artist  ever  won  such  ungrudg- 
ing appreciation  from  both  his  brother  artists  and  all  classes 
of  the  public.  So  severe  a  critic  as  Whistler  said  :  "  Modem 
Black  and  White  Art  could  be  summed  up  in  two  words — 
Phil  May."  His  weekly  contributions  to  Punch  came  to  be 
anticipated  and  discussed  as  a  pleasurable  event  of  the  fy'  ■■■: 
order.  This  high  fame  was  practically  achieved  and  concluder. 
in  the  Nineties,  for  Phil  May  died  in  1903,  just  before  e.  tcring 
his  fortieth  year.  After  his  death  several  volumes  a'  his 
drawings  were  published,  including  Sketches  from  Punch  nd 
A  Phil  May  Picture  Book  (1903)  ;  and  a  Folio  of  Caricature 
Drawings  and  Sketches  and  Phil  May  in  Australia  (1904). 

The  two  outstanding  qualities  of  Phil  May's  drawings  are 
heir  simplicity  and  their  humour.     No  draughtsman  before 
him  had  ever  succeeded  in  expressing  so  much  with  such 


288  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

apparent  ease  and  such  economy  of  means.  He  translated 
the  brevity  of  wit  into  black  and  white  art,  for  although  he 
was  fundamentally  a  humorist,  and  often  a  humorist  of  a 
very  primitive  type,  the  most  successful  of  his  drawings  are 
as  witty  as  they  are  funny.  His  capacity  for  wit  is  also 
revealed  in  those  early  caricatures  of  his,  which,  if  they  had 
been  continued,  would  have  won  him  fame  in  another 
direction.  But  it  is  as  a  humorous  artist  that  he  will  be 
remembered  and  loved.  Not  since  Charles  Keene  had  the 
distinctive  qualities  of  our  native  humour  been  caught  with 
such  unerring  exactitude  and  force.  At  the  same  time  May 
achieved  a  far  greater  versatility  than  Keene.  His  mind 
ranged  over  every  phase  of  the  life  of  his  time,  and  his  amaz- 
ing skill  recorded  the  funniness  of  Whitechapel  or  Mayfair 
with  equal  inevitability.  The  wonderful  simplicity  of  these 
drawings  augmented  their  popular  success,  and  it  provoked 
as  well  an  equally  persistent  legend  about  his  art,  for  it  was 
customaiy  to  attribute  May's  simplicity  of  line  to  the  belief 
that  whilst  he  was  in  Australia  he  was  forced  to  evolve  a 
simple  method  of  drawing  owing  to  the  limitations  of  local 
reproductive  processes.  This  illusion  had  no  basis  in  fact, 
for  the  style  was  as  much  the  man  in  Phil  May's  case  as  in 
that  of  any  other  artist  of  equal  skill.  "  For  May's  view  of 
life,"  wrote  his  friend  and  fellow-artist,  G.  R.  Halkett,  "  with 
its  sharp  emphasis  of  character,  and  its  expression  always  of 
the  type  rather  than  the  individual,  an  overloading  of  detail 
would  mean,  even  in  its  completeness,  a  lack  of  certainty 
and  a  halting  expression  of  his  idea.  In  the  result,  May's 
work  was  always  that  of  the  brilliant  sketcher  who  records 
only  those  essentials  which  express  '  the  soul  '  of  the  object 
before  him.  The  accessories  he  put  behind  him  with  no  lack 
of  appreciation,  and  certainly  with  no  lack  of  study,  because 
he  was  concerned  with  deeper  things,  from  which,  with  unerr- 
ing instinct,  he  knew  how  to  discard  the  merely  superfluous." 
Next  to  the  directness  of  his  appeal  the  easy  familiarity  of 
his  humour  made  him  universally  acceptable.  It  was  funda- 
mental, primitive  and  native  humour,  reflecting  feelings 
which  exist  in  most  adults  without  respect  to  class  or  opinion. 


I 


,>4\Vlr^'^^ 


A  Lectuke  in  Stork 

'v{;T^U;:^^ii^c  in  rea..n,  M',ia-(hic)-but  1  .v«7  con^e  on,, 
By  Phil  May 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  289 

And  above  all  it  was  easier  of  acceptance  because  of  its 
whole-hearted  geniality  and  amiable  tolerance  of  human 
foibles.  It  never  aroused  superior  laughter  ;  c}T»icism  was 
as  absent  as  attempt  to  score  off  the  inferiorities  of  others  ; 
one  could  laugh  and  feel  comfortable  with  him,  as  one  could 
with,  say,  Charles  Dickens  or  Dan  Leno.  Phil  May  made 
his  appreciators  feel  as  they  looked  and  laughed  at  one  of 
his  quaint  or  preposterous  creations  that  "there,  but  for  the 
grace  of  God,  go  I."  By  making  you  laugh  with  him  at 
something  he  had  observed  or  imagined  he  thus  forced  you 
to  laugh  good-humouredly  and  with  amiable  fatalism  at 
yourself.  But  in  spite  of  all  this  undoubted  geniality  the 
subject  of  his  humour  was  more  often  than  not  fitter  for  tears 
than  laughter.  His  "  guttersnipes, "  his  ragamuffins,  and  all 
the  degraded  and  unfortunate  class- less  folk  he  delineated 
with  such  genius  in  all  sorts  of  laughable  situations,  might 
just  as  easily  have  been  the  subjects  of  weeping  or,  better,  of 
wrath.  In  some  of  the  finest  of  these  drawings  the  humour 
miscarries  in  the  triumph  of  a  tragic  realism  ;  and  in  most  of 
his  studies  of  low  life — studies  of  drunkards,  ragged,  dirty 
and  half-starved  children,  inept  old  men  and  unkempt  women 
of  all  ages — the  laughter  provoked  can  be  little  more  than 
the  protective  covering  of  merriment  against  the  pains  of 
impotent  sympathy.  How  far  Phil  May  felt  this  paradox 
of  his  own,  and,  perhaps,  all  humour,  we  do  not  know  ;  but 
the  misfortunes  of  his  own  life,  due  mainly  to  personal  foibles, 
must  have  developed  in  him  that  kindly  and  indifferent 
fatalism  which  pervades  his  work. 

The  best  of  the  new  men  worked  for  Pick-me-up  in  its  early 
days,  and  also  for  The  Butterfly  and  Eureka,  and  in  those 
publications  realism,  satire,  humour,  cynicism  and  caricature 
flourished  with  all  the  spriteliness  of  a  lively  age  and  keen 
artistic  enthusiasm.  In  many  directions  one  can  trace  the 
influence  of  Phil  May  both  in  technique,  which  is  chiefly  the 
concern  of  the  draughtsmen  themselves,  and  in  point  of  view. 
But  many  artists  developed  a  metier  of  their  own,  and  most 
of  them  had  sufficient  originality  of  technique  and  subject 
to  arouse  critical  interest.     The  renaissance  of  black  and 


290  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

white  drawing  was  not,  however,  confined  to  tlie  regular 
artists  in  that  medium,  it  gained  supporters  from  among 
painters,  many  of  whom,  such  as  Dudley  Hardy,  Walter 
Siekert,  Maurice  Greiffenhagen  and  Sidney  H.  Sime,  doing 
work  which  held  its  own  among  the  best  work  of  the  regular 
pen  and  pencil  draughtsmen.  And  in  this  connection  the 
long  series  of  lithographic  portraits  by  William  Rothenstein  ^ 
must  be  remembered,  and  the  early  line-drawn  caricatures  of 
Max  Beerbohm.  Cecil  Aldin  was  contributing  clever  animal 
studies  in  wash  to  the  popular  illustrated  journals,  and  etchers 
like  Joseph  Pennell  and  painter-etchers  like  Alfonse  Legros 
and  William  Strang  made  incursions  into  the  popular  realms 
of  black  and  white  illustrations  ;  and  even  so  essential  a 
colourist  as  Charles  Conder  came  under  the  same  spell. 

Variety  was  a  marked  characteristic  of  the  black  and  white 
art  of  the  Nineties,  and  it  has  to  be  admitted  that  apart  from 
the  two  main  schools  of  illustration — the  decorative  and  the 
illustrative,  which  correspond  with  the  romantic  and  realistic 
schools  of  painting — little  of  the  work  was  other  than  normal, 
and,  save  for  the  circumstances  of  the  moment,  possible  dur- 
ing any  recent  decade.  Individual  talent,  of  course,  had  its 
say  in  all  directions,  and  every  manifestation  of  genius  and 
skill  found  appreciators.  The  list  of  draughtsmen  whose 
work  is  distinctive  after  the  critical  winnowing  of  more  than 
fifteen  years,  and,  in  some  instances,  twenty,  is  still  impres- 
sive, including,  as  it  does,  such  names  as  Raven  Hill,  C.  E. 
Brock,  F.  H.  Townsend,  G.  R.  Halkett,  Frank  L.  Emanuel, 
H.  R.  Millar,  E.  J.  Sullivan,  R.  Spence,  O.  Eckhardt,  A.  S. 
Hartrick,  Gilbert  James,  J.  W.  T.  Manuel,  Hilda  Cowham, 
E.  T.  Reed,  Charles  Pears,  Patten  Wilson  and  Bernard 
Partridge,  all  of  whom  either  published  their  first  work 
during  the  decade  or  produced  such  good  work  as  to  give 
them  repute.  And  in  addition  to  this  varied  array  of  ability 
newer  men  were  also  coming  forward.  Among  these  may  be 
named  Henry  Ospovat,  Carton  Moore  Park,  Gordon  Craig,  Dion 
Clayton  Calthrop  and  Joseph  Simpson,  each  of  whom  published 

^  For  an  account  of  these  lithographs  see  "  The  Lithographic  Por- 
traits of  Will  Rothenstein  '-  in  the  author's  Romance  and  Reality. 


TiiK  1;a.nks  of  tiik  Stvx 

By  S.  H.  Siiiu- 


IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE  291 

their  early  work  at  the  close  of  the  period,  but  whose  main 
work  in  varied  directions  belongs  to  succeeding  decades. 

All  the  ideas  and  "movements  "  of  the  time  had  their 
devotees  among  the  black  and  white  artists — decadence  in 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  realism  in  Phil  May,  Raven  Hill  and 
J.  W.  T.  Manuel ;  romanticism  in  Maurice  Greiffenhagen, 
and  that  urbanity  which  I  have  dealt  with  under  the  heading 
of  "The  New  Dandyism,"  in  Max  Beerbohm,  Dion  Clayton 
Calthrop  and  others.  Besides  these  phases  there  were 
several  artists  who  combined  the  realistic  and  romantic 
points  of  view  in  their  work,  and,  in  the  true  spirit  of  the 
moment's  complex  intellectualism,  added  to  it  that  cynicism 
and  doubt  of  convention  which  characterises  so  much  of 
modern  thought.  Chief  among  these  artists  stands  Sydney 
H.  Sime,  whose  contributions  to  Pick-me-wp,  The  Butterfly, 
Eureka  and  The  Idler  reveal  one  of  the  most  original  and 
most  gifted  artists  of  the  time. 

All  the  varieties  oi  fin  de  siecle  black  and  white  drawing 
found  a  capable  and  prodigal  exponent  in  this  artist,  who 
was  equally  at  home  with  pen,  pencil  or  brush.  Few  artists 
of  the  time  had  his  versatility,  and  still  fewer  his  mental 
range.  His  line  drawings  illustrating  "  Jingle's  "  theatrical 
notes  in  Pick-me-up  reveal  not  only  a  draughtsman  of  dis- 
tinction, but  an  exact  observer  of  life,  and  a  humorist  to 
boot;  some  of  his  covers  for  Eureka,  particularly  the  "White- 
eyed  Kaffir,"  prove  that  he  might  have  won  fame  as  a  poster 
designer  had  he  wished,  whilst  his  little  landscapes  in  the 
medium  of  wash,  which  appeared  from  time  to  time  in  The 
Butterfly,  have  all  the  qualities  of  fine  pastel-work.  But 
the  phase  of  Sime's  work  which  most  nearly  expresses  a 
distinctive  mood  of  the  period  is  that  which  reveals  him  as 
a  sardonic  critic  of  humanity  and  conventional  faith. 

From  time  to  time  he  published  drawings  in  Pick-me-up, 
and  elsewhere,  which  represented  a  new  type  of  caricature 
for  this  country.  He  could,  and  did,  caricature  personality 
in  the  traditional  manner  ;  but,  interesting  as  these  works 
proved  to  be,  they  were  not  sufficiently  distinctive  to  com- 
mand more  than  passing  attention.     His  outstanding  work 


292  THE  EIGHTEEN  NINETIES 

in  caricature  was  independent  of  personality.  It  did  not 
pass  satiric  or  humorous  comment  upon  this  or  that  man  of 
note  ;  it  said  its  say  about  man  as  man,  and  about  man's 
most  cherished  ideas  and  beHefs.  Sime  once  described 
caricature  as  in  the  nature  of  a  sarcastic  remark,  and  there 
is  sarcasm  enough  in  these  irreverent  drawings  of  his.  But 
neither  sarcasm  nor  irreverence  is  their  aim  or  outcome. 
They  are  obviously  the  work  of  an  artist  and  thinker,  of  one 
who  did  not  choose  to  mask  his  contempt  of  human  weak- 
ness. His  satires  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  funny  as  they  are,  do 
not  end  as  jokes.  He  sees  in  these  popular  conceptions  of 
the  hereafter  mere  substitutes  for  thought  and  imagination 
and  courageous  living,  and  his  attitude  resembles  that  of 
Rudyard  Kipling  in  "Tomlinson,"  which  work,  significantly 
enough,  he  desired  above  all  things  to  illustrate,  although  he 
never  produced  more  than  two  or  three  drawings  towards 
that  end. 

The  restless  spirit  of  the  time  thus  found  varied  expression 
in  its  black  and  white  art.  From  Phil  May's  laughter  at 
tragedy  to  Sime's  laughter  at  humanity  is  a  far  cry  ;  and  it 
is  still  further  to  Aubrey  Beardsley's  decorated  cynicism. 
Yet  each  point  of  view  is  typical  of  the  period,  each  in  its 
way  an  expression  of  that  thirst  for  reality  which  character- 
ised the  whole  art  work  of  the  decade. 

In  the  work  of  no  single  artist  was  a  final  interpretation 
of  reality  attained.  The  art  of  the  time  was  perhaps  too 
personal  for  that ;  just  as  it  was  too  personal  for  work  within 
prescribed  conventions  or  fomialities.  The  age  favoured 
experiment  and  adventure,  and  it  even  looked  not  unkindly 
upon  the  various  whims  of  the  inquisitive,  on  the  assumption 
doubtless  that  discovery  was  as  often  the  result  of  accident 
as  of  design.  In  this  large  tolerance  the  spirit  of  renaissance 
worked  through  mind  and  imagination  inspiring  artists  ^^'ith 
a  new  confidence  in  themselves  and  courage  to  take  risks. 
The  results  were  not  always  happy  ;  but  that  does  not  make 
the  spirit  in  which  the  risks  were  taken  less  admirable,  for 
those  who  make  great  effort  contribute  to  life  as  well  as 
those  who  achieve. 


INDEX 


About     the     Theatre,     by     William 

Archer,  207 
Academy,  The,   169-170 
Achurch,  Janet,  207-208 
Adams,  Francis,  34 
Addison,  Joseph,  41,  121 
"  A.E."  (see  George  Russell) 
^schylus,  167 
.(Esthetic  movement,  28,  67 
A  hab  and  Jezebel,  by  Oscar  Wilde,  80 
Albert,  Prince,  100 
Aldin,  Cecil,  290 
Allen,  Grant,  21,  28-29,  35.  39.  40. 

44,  131,  147-148,  151-152,  216 
Almanack    of    Twelve     Sports,    by 

W.     E.     Henley,    illustrated    by 

William  Nicholson,  274 
Almayer's  Folly,  by  Joseph  Conrad, 
^  225 

"  An  Artist  in  Attitudes,"  81 
Angelo,  Michael,  139 
Anthem     of     Earth,      by      Francis 

Thompson,   175-176 
Archer,  Charles,  207 
Archer,  Wilham,  157-158,  205,  207, 

208,  213 
A  Rebours,  by  J.  K.  Huysmans,  28, 

59,  61-62 
Arms  and   the    Man,    by    Bernard 

Shaw,  194 
Arnold,  Matthew,  128 
Art  Workers'  Guild,  246 
Arts  and  Crafts  Essays,  245,  256 
Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition  Society, 

246 
Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibition,  253 
Arts  and  Crafts  movement,  244-247, 

267,  280,  284 
Ashbee,  C.  R.,  265 
Auld  Licht  Idylls,  by  J.  M.  Barrie, 

224 
Autobiography    of  a   Boy,    The,    by 

G.  S.  Street,  41,  67-69,  228 
Aveling,  Eleanor  Marx,  207 
Aylwin,      by      Theodore       Watts- 

Dunton,  39 

Bailey,  Philip  James,  38 

Balestier,  Wolcot,  232 

Ballad  of  an  Artist's  Wife,  The,  by 
John  Davidson,  187 

Ballad  of  a  Nun,  The,  by  John 
Davidson,  187 

Ballad  of  Heaven,  A,  by  John 
Davidson,  188 

Ballad  of  Hell,  The,  by  John 
Davidson,  187 

Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  The,  by 
Oscar  Wilde,   80,  82-83,  88-89 

Ballads  and  Songs,  by  John  David- 
son,  178,   181 

293 


Ballantyne  &  Hanson,  265 

Balzac,  74,  87 

Baptist  Lake,  by  John  Davidson,  1 78 

Baring-Gould,  S.,  250 

Baring,  Maurice,  48 

Barker,  Granville,  214-215 

Barlow,  Jane,  225 

Barrack-Room  Ballads,  by  Rud- 
yard  Kipling,  232,  241 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  35,  40,  42,  224-225, 
227-228 

Bashkirtseff,  Marie,  206 

Battle  of  the  Bays,  The,  by  Owen 
Seaman,  159 

Bauble  Shop,  The,  by  Henry 
Arthur  Jones,  209 

Baudelaire,  Charles,  61,  no,  in, 
136,  143,  160,  196,  201 

Beardsley,  Aubrey,  17,  21,  23,  34, 
37.  45.  46,  47.  48,  50.  59.  60,  63, 
76,  91-104,  III,  114-115,  117, 
130-131,  137-138,  142,  143,  186, 
268,  273,  280,  282,  290-292 

Beardsley,  The  Last  Letters  of  Aubrey, 

94 
Beardsley,  Miss  Mabel,  92 
"  Beardsley  Craze,"  93 
Beardsley  woman,  the,  46,  93 
Beccarius,  by  Max  Beerbohm,  117 
Becke,  Louis,  225 
Beeching,  H.  C,  159 
Beerbohm,  Max,  17,  20,  25,  30,  35, 

41,  45,  48,  50,  97,  102,  108,  112, 

116,  117-125,  130,  197,  229,  291 
Beerbohm,  The  Works  of  Max,  41, 

118-120,  123 
Beers  Company,  the  De,  238 
BeggarstafE  Brothers,  34,  274-275 
Bell,  R.  Anning,  47,  283 
Beltaine,  150 
Bending    of    the    Bough,    The,    by 

George  Moore,  149 
Benson,  Arthur  Christopher,  40,  47 
Benson,  E.  F.,  224 
Benson,  F.  R.,  212 
Benson,  W.  A.  S.,  251 
Berneval-sur-Mer,  80 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  76 
Besant,  Annie,  26 
Beside   the  Bonnie   Brier  Bush,   by 

Ian  Maclaren,  225 
Binyon,  Laurence,  45,  51,  109,  159 
Birmingham  School  of  Art,  284-285 
Bjornson,  Bjornstjerne,  133,  209 
Black,  William,  39 
Black  Cat,  The,  209 
Blake,  William,  50,  91,  99,  167,  174 
Bland,  Hubert,  26 
Blatchford,  Robert,  24,  44 
Blind,  Mathilde,  50 
Blomlield.  Reginald,  251 


294 


INDEX 


Bodley,  G.  F.,  251 

Bodley  Head,  The,  41,  45,  76,  119, 
186 

Bogland  Studies, hy  }dine  Barlow,  225 

Book  Bills  of  Narcissus,  The,  by 
Richard  le  Gallienne,  226 

"  Bon  Mot  "  series,  103 

Booth,  Charles,  44 

Bottomley,  Gordon,  51 

Brand,  by  Henrik  Ibsen,  209 

Brandes,  George,  133 

Brangwyn,  Frank,  268,  270,  276, 
277-278 

Bridges,  Robert,  39 

Brieux,  Eugene,  201 

British  South  Africa  Company,  238 

Brock,  C.  E.,  290 

Brooke,  Emma  Frances,  224 

Brooke,  Stopford,  39 

Brown,  Ford  Madox,  246,  272 

Browning,  Robert,  25,  38,  128,  157 

Bruce  :  a  Drama,  by  John  David- 
son, 178 

Buchanan,  Robert,  128 

BuUen,  Frank  T.,  225 

Burne-Jones,  Sir  Edward,  33,  100, 
103,  259-260,  273,  282 

Burns,  John,  26 

Burns,  Robert,  283 

Butler,  Samuel,  203 

Butterfly,  The,  36,  289,  291 

Byron,  Lord,  57,  158 

Cadenhead, John, 150 

Caesar   and   Cleopatra,   by   Bernard 

Shaw,  195 
Cafe  Royale,  58 
Caine,  Hall,  39,  218,  226 
Caldecott,  Randolph,  281 
Calthrop,  Dion  Clayton,  290-291 
Cameron,  D.  Y.,  270 
Campbell,  Mrs  Patrick,  213 
Candida,  by  Bernard  Shaw,  194 
Canterbury  Poets,  52 
Canterville    Ghost,    The,    by    Oscar 

Wilde,  74 
Captain    Brassbound's    Conversion, 

by  Bernard  Shaw,  194 
Captains  Courageous,  by   Rudyard 

Kipling,  232 
Caricatures    of    Twenty-five    Gentle- 
men, by  Max  Beerbohm,  124 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  203 
Carpenter,  Edward,  34,  44,  48 
Carroll,  Lewis,  227 
Carthusian,  The,  117 
Carton,  R.  C,  214 
Case   of  Rebellious  Susan,  The,  by 

Henry  Arthur  Jones,  212 
Cashel      Bvron's      Profession,      by 

Bernard  Shaw,  194 


Ccislon,  255 

Caxton,  Wilham,  260 

Celtic  revival,  42,  147-156 

Celtic     Twilight,    The,     by    W.     B. 

Yeats,  42,  149,  155 
Chamberlain,  Joseph,   151,  238-239 
Chameleon,  The,  36 
Champneys,  Basil,  251 
Chant,  Mrs  Ormiston,  24 
Chap-Book,  The,  118 
Charrington,  Charles,  207-208 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  112 
Child   of  the   J  ago.   A,    by   Arthur 

Morrison,  43,  130,  216 
Children    of    the    Ghetto,    by   Israel 

Zangwill,  225 
Chiswick  Press,  255,  257 
Chord,  The,  36 
Christ  in  Hades,  by  Stephen  Phillips, 

158,  164 
Christmas   Day   in   the    Workhouse, 

by  G.  R.  Sims,  187 
Christmas     Garland,     A,    by     Max 

Beerbohm,  120 
Chronicle,  The  Daily,  24,  80 
City    of   Dreadful    Night,    The,    by 

Rudyard  Kipling,  232 
Clarion,  The,  24 
Clausen,  George,  270 
Clifford,  Mrs  W.  K.,  224 
Cobden-Sanderson,  T.  J.,  251,  253, 

260,  266 
Cockerell,  Douglas,  251 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  58,  158 
Collins,  Lottie,  31 
Colour    of     Life,     The,     by    Alice 

Meynell,  139.  I45 
Colvin,  Sydney,  39 
Comte,  60 

Comus,  by  John  Milton,  58 
Conder,  Charles,  35,  37,  48,  50,  131, 

270,  273-274 
Confessions   of  a    Young  Man,   by 

George  Moore,  63 
Conrad,  Joseph,  40,  50,  225 
Coppee,  Francois,   178 
CorelU,  Marie,  225 
Couch,  Arthur  Quiller,  35,  225 
Countess   Kathleen,   The,  by  \V.   B. 

Yeats,  41,  149,  156 
Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  The,  by 

Rudyard  Kipling,  232 
Crackanthorpe,  Hubert,  35,  47,  131, 

142,  144,  220,  223 
Craig,  Gordon,  51,  207,  290 
Crane,  Stephen,  229 
Crane,  Walter,  33,  48,  251,  280-283 
Crashaw,  Richard,  166 
Critic    as    Artist,    The,    by    Oscar 

Wilde,  75 
Crockett,  Alexander,  177 


INDEX 


295 


Crockett,  S.  R.,  42,  150,  224 

Crosland,  T.  W.  H.,  51 

Cruelties  of  Prison  Life,  by  Oscar 

Wilde,  80 
Custance,  Olive,  48,  159 
Cyrenaicism,  the  New,  59 

Daily  Express  (Dublin),  The,  150 

Daily  Graphic,  The,  287 

Daily  Mail,  The,  52 

Daily  Telegraph,  The,  208 

Dalmon,  Charles,  48,  159 

D'Annunzio,  Gabriele,  128 

Dante,  272 

D'Arcy,  Ella,  48 

Darwinian  idea,  190 

D'Aurevilly,   Barbey,    13,    iio-iii, 

114-115 
Davidson,  Alexander,   177 
Davidson,  John,  20,  35,  41,  45,  47, 

91,   106,   129,  131,   158,   177-192, 

234 
Davies,  William  H.,  170 
Day's     Work,    The,     by    Rudyard 

Kipling,  232 
Decadents,  The,  36 
Decameron,  The,  by  Boccaccio,  102 
Decay    of    Lying,    The,     by   Oscar 

Wilde,  75 
Decorative  Illustration,     by  Walter 

Crane,  280 
Deemster,  The,  by  Hall  Caine,  225 
Defence    of  Cosmetics,  A,   by  Max 

Beerbohm,  117 
Defence  of  the  Revival  of  Printing,  by 

Charles  Ricketts,  261 
Degas,  203 

Degeneration,  by  Max  Nordan,  195 
Dent,  J.  M.,  93 
Departmental  Ditties,   by   Rudyard 

Kipling,  231,  232 
De    Profundis,    by    Oscar    Wilde, 

80-81,  88 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  167 
Devil's   Disciple,    The,   by  Bernard 

Shaw,  195 
Dial,  The,  ■2$'j,  260,  261 
Diarmuid  and    Crania,    by   W.    B. 

Yeats  and  George  Moore,  149 
Diary     of    Lady     Willoughby,     by 

Hannah  Mary  Rathbone,  255 
Dickens,  Charles,  33,  43,  107,  217, 

289 
Dionysos,  58 
Dobson,  Austin,  39 
Doll's  House,  A,  by  Henrik  Ibsen, 

208-209 
Dome,  The,  36,  50-51 
"  Don't  Read  This  if  You  Want  to 

be    Happy    To-day,"    by    Oscar 

Wilde,  80 


D'Orsay,  Count,  122 

Douglas,  Lord  Alfred,  76,  159 

Douglas,  Sir  George,  150 

Doves  Press,  255,  266 

Dow,  T.  MiUie,  270 

Dowie,  Menie  Muriel,  224 

Dowden,  Edward,  39 

Dowson,  Ernest,  35,  48,  58,  70,  91, 

158,  162,  166 
Doyle,  Arthur  Conan,  40,  225 
Dream  Days,  by  Kenneth  Graham, 

227 
Dream  Tryst,  by  Francis  Thompson, 

167 
Dublin  Revieiv ,  The,  167-168 
Duchess  of  Padua,    The,  by  Oscar 

Wilde,  75 
Du  Maurier,  George,  39,  67,  226,  279 
Duncan,  John,  150,  283 
Durer,  Albrecht,  281 

Eagle  and  the  Serpent,  The,  129-130 
Early    Italian     Poets,     by    D.     G. 

Rossetti,  281 
Ehb-Tide,    The,    by    Robert    Louis 

Stevenson  and   Lloyd  Osbourne, 

225 
Echegaray,  209 
Eckhardt,  O.,  290 
Egerton,  George,  45,   47,   129,   143, 

144,  217,  224 
Eglinton,  John,  42,  149 
Elder  Conklin  and  Other  Stories,  by 

Frank  Harris,  43 
Eliot,  George,  217 
Ellis,  Havelock,  50.  129,  221 
Elsmere,  Robert,  by  Mrs  Humphry 

Ward,  224 
Emanuel,  Frank  L.,  290 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  132 
Emperor   and   Galilean,  by   Henrik 

Ibsen,  208 
Endymion,  by  John  Keats,  58 
Enemy     of    the    People,     An,     by 

Henrik  Ibsen,  209-210 
English     Episodes,     by     Frederick 

Wedmore,  39 
English  Illustrated  Magazine,  281 
English  People,  Modern  History  of, 

by  R.  H.  Gretton,  53 
Episodes,  by  G.  S.  Street,  144 
Eragny  Press,  255 
Esperance  Girls'  Club,  250 
Essex  House  Press,  255,  265-266 
Esther    Waters,    by   George   Moore, 

43,  63,  130,  216,  228-230 
Eureka,  36,  289,  291 
Euripides,  212 
Evans,  Frederick  H.,  93 
Evelyn    Innes,    by    George    Moore, 

230 


296 


INDEX 


Eve    of   SI   Agnes,    The,    by    John 

Keats,  58 
Evergreen,  The,  36,  43,  150,  283 

Fabian  Essays  in  Socialism,  194 
Fabianism     and     the    Empire,     by 

Bernard  Shaw,  195 
Fabian  Society,  the,  26,   186,   194, 

200,  209 
Faerie       Queene,        by       Edmund 

Spenser,  281 
Farrar,  Archdeacon,  38 
Fathers    and    Children,     by     Ivan 

Turgenev,  132 
Fat      Woman,      The,     by     Aubrey 

Beardsley,    101-102 
Fell,  H.  Granville,  283 
Fenn,  Frederick,  214 
Fergusson,  John  Duncan,  35,  270 
Feverel,  The  Ordeal  of  Richard,  by 

George  Meredith,  123 
Field,  Michael,  45,  159,  209 
Fitzgerald,  Edward,  135 
Fleet     Street     Eclogues,     by     John 

Davidson,  41,  106,  178 
Fleet     Street     Eclogues,     by     John 

Davidson  (second  series),  178 
Fleet    Street   and   Other   Poems,    by 

John  Davidson,  178 
Fleming,  George,  144 
Fleshly   School   of  Poetry,    The,   by 

Robert  Buchanan,  128 
Fortnightly  Review,  The,  28,  74,  147 
Fletcher,  A.  E.,  24 
Florentine    Tragedy,    A,    by    Oscar 

Wilde,  75 
Forbes,  Stanhope,  270 
Forest     Lovers,     The,    by     Maurice 

Hewlett,  226 
For  theCrown,hY  ]ohn'Da.v\dson,  178 
Fowler,  Robert,  270,  273,  276 
Fragonard,  274 
France,  Anatole,  48,  206 
Frederic,  Harold,  226 
French  Revolution,  57 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  38 
Fry,  Roger,  51 
Furniss,  Harry,  280 
Furse,  Charles  W.,  47 
Futurists  of  Milan,  188 

Gale,  Norman,  45 

Galsworthy,  John,  214 

Gal  ton,  Francis,  38 

Garden     Cities    of    To-morrow,    by 

Ebcnezer  Howard,  254 
Garnett,  Richard,  47 
Gaskin,  Arthur,  284 
Gaskin,  Mrs  Arthur,  284 
Gautier,  Theophile,  58,  61,  70,  85, 

III,  136,  160,  196 


Geddes,  Patrick,  42,  150,  283 
Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,  The, 

by  James  McNeill  Whistler,  40 
George  IV.  (caricature  of),  48 
George,  D.  Lloyd,  151,  239 
Gere,  C.  M.,  284 
Gerontius,  The  Dream  of,  by  John 

Henry  Newman,  68 
Ghetto  Tragedies,  by  Israel  Zangwill, 

225 
Ghosts,  by  Henrik  Ibsen,  194,  208 
Gide,  Andre,  72,  78-79 
Gibson,  Wilfred  Wilson,  51 
Gilbert  and  Sullivan,  73 
Gilbert,  W.  S.,  67,  73,  118 
Gilchrist,  Murray,  229 
Giles,  Althea,  51,  283 
Gissing,  George,  27,  35,  39,  43,  223, 

229 
Glasgow  Herald,  The,  178 
Glasgow  School,  269-270 
Gods  and  Fighting  Men,  by  Lady 

Gregory,   149 
Golden     Age,     The,     by     Kenneth 

Graham,   227 
Goncourt,  Edmund  and  Jules  dc,  58 
Gordon,  General,  237 
Gosse,  Edmund,  38,  47,  50,  207 
Goya,  by  W.  Rothenstein,  277 
Graham,   R.   B.   Cunninghame,   35, 

44.  225 
Grahame,  Kenneth,  45,  47,  227 
Grand,  Sarah,  217,  224 
Graphic,  The,  287 
Graphic  Pictures,  by  Phil  May,  287 
Gray,  John,  94,  159,  166,  262 
Great    God    Pan,    The,    by    Arthur 

Machen,  226-227 
Greenawa3^  Kate,  92,  281 
Green    Carnation,    The,   by    Robert 

Hichens,  41,  73,  79,  135.  139,  228 
Green  Fire,  by  Fiona  Macleod,  139 
Gregory,  Lady,  42,  149 
Greiffenhagen,    Maurice,    270,    273, 

276,  290 
Grein,  J.  T.,  194,  205 
Gretton,  R.  H.,  31  (footnote),  53 
Grey  Roses,  by  Henry  Harland,  139 
Grosvenor  Gallery,  25,  270 
Grund}',  Sidney,  78,  214 
Guest,  Lady  Charlotte,  151 
Guild  of  Handicraft,  265 
Gunga  Din,  by  Rudyard  Kipling,  187 
Gunnlang      Saga,     translated      by 

William  Morris,  257 
Guthrie,  Sir  James,  270 
Guttersnipes,  by  Phil  May,  287 

Hacon  8c  Ricketts,  51,  257 
Haggard,  Rider,  39 
Halkett.  G.  R.,  288,  290 


INDEX 


297 


Hankin,  St  John,  214 

Happy    Hypocrite,    The,    by    Max 

Beerbohm,   120,  123,  229 
Happy  Prince  and  Other  Tales,  The, 

by  Oscar  Wilde,  54,  89 
Hardie,  M.P.,  Keir,  26 
Hardy,  Dudley,  47,  268,  270,  290 
Hardy,  Thomas,   38,  40,  216,  221- 

222,  223 
Hardy,    The    Art    of    Thomas,    by 

Lionel  Johnson,  38 
Harland,     Henry,     35-36,     46,    47, 

131,  143,  144,  224,  229 
Harlot's     House,     The,     by    Oscar 

Wilde,  82,  83,  102 
Harmsworth,  Alfred,  54 
Harraden,  Beatrice,  224 
Harris,  Sir  Augustus,  275 
Harris,  Frank,  43,  225,  228-229 
Harrison,  Frederic,  38 
Hartrick,  A.  S.,  36,  47-48,  290 
Hauptmann,  Gerhardt,  210 
Hayes,  Alfred,  47 
Headlam,  Rev.  Stewart,  26 
Heather    Field,    The,     by    Edward 

Martyn,  149 
Hedda    Gabler,    by    Henrik    Ibsen, 

194,  208-209 
Hedonism,    The     New,     by     Grant 

Allen,  21,  28-29 
Heinemann,  William,  45 
Henley,    William    Ernest,    34,    38, 

108-109,  143.  267 
Henry,  George,  270 
Henry  &  Co.,  45,  129 
Herbert,  George,  166 
Hernani,  by  Victor  Hugo,  39,  207 
Hewlett,  Maurice,  40,  226 
Hiatt,  Charles,  274-275 
Hichens,  Robert,  41,  73 
Hill,  Raven,  36,  37,  280,  290-291 
Hind,  C.  Lewis,  170-172 
Hobbes,  John  Oliver,   35,   47,    144, 

224 
Hobby  Horse,  The,  36,  257,  281 
Holiday     and     Other      Poems,     by 

John  Davidson,  178,  184 
Holmes,  C.  J.,  51 
Hope,  Anthony,  40 
Horace,  121 

Home,  Herbert  P.,  257,  281 
Hornel,  E.  A.,  35,  150,  270 
Hornung,  E.  W.,  226 
Horton,  William,  T.,  50,  284 
Hound  of  Heaven,  The,  by  Francis 

Thompson,   172-173 
House    of    Pomegranates,    The,    by 

Oscar  Wilde.  74,  75.  88,  89.  260, 

262 
House    of    the     Wolfings,    The,    by 

William  Morris,  257 


Housman,  A.  E.,  40,  45,  158,  164-165 
Housman,    Laurence,    37,    47,    51, 

158,  280,  283 
Howard,  Ebenezer,  254 
Hudson,  W.  H.,  40 
Hueffer,  Ford  Madox,  48 
Hugo,  Victor,  178 
Humanitarian  League,  the,   186 
Hunt,  Holman,  33,  281 
Hunt,  Leigh,  41 
Huysmans,  Joris   Karl,  28,  58,   61, 

136,  223 
Huxley,  Thomas  HenrJ^  38 
Hyde,  Dr  Douglas,  42,  149 
Hyndman,  Henry  Mayers,  26,  134 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  27,  128,  133,  194, 

196,  201-203,  205-212,  220 
Ibsenism,   the    Quintessence    of,   by 

Bernard  Shaw,  44,  194,  198,  211 
Ideal     Husband,     An,     by     Oscar 

Wilde,  76,  88 
Idler,  The,  36 
Idylls   of  the  King,    The,   bj'  Lord 

Tennyson,  100 
Illumination,  by   Harold   Frederic, 

226 
Image,  Selwyn,  50,  159,  257,  281 
Importance  of  Being  Earnest,   The, 

by  Oscar  Wilde,  76,   105-106 
Impossibilities    of    Anarchism,    by 

Bernard  Shaw,  195 
Impressionists,    French,    198,    203, 

207,  244,  267-269,  272-273,  276 
In  a  Music  Hall,  by  John  David- 
son, 178 
In  Black  and   White,  by  Rudyard 

Kipling,  232 
Independent  Theatre,  the,  205,  209 
Industrial    Democracy,    by    Sidney 

and  Beatrice  Webb,  44 
Ingelow,  Jane,  38 
Intentions,    by    Oscar    Wilde,     75, 

85,  88 
In  the  Key  of  Blue,  by  John  Ad- 

dington  Symonds,  39,  262 
"  Iota,"  224 
Irish   Literary   movement,   42,   64, 

149-150 
Irish  Melodies,  by  Thomas  Moore, 

153 

Irish  National  Theatre,  42,   150 
Irving,  Sir  Henry,  211 
"  Israfel,"  51 

It's    Never    too    Late   to   Mend,    by 
Charles  Rcade,  196 

Jackson,  T.  G.,  251 
Jacobs,  W.  W.,  227 
James,  Gilbert,  290 
James,  Henry,  38,  47,  217,  223 


298 


INDEX 


Jameson,  Dr,  238-239 

Jameson  Raid,  the,  23,  233 

Jeflferies,  Richard,  186 

Jenson,  Nicholas,  256,  258 

Jerome,  Jerome  K.,  40,  227 

"  Jingle."  291 

Joan  of  Arc,  The  Procession  of,  by 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  loo 

John,  Augustus,  270 

Johnson,  Lionel,  35,  38,  45,  48,  131, 
141-142,  149,  158,  160-161,  166 

Johnson,  Samuel,  41,  107,  115 

Jones  and  Evans,  93 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  209,  212-213 

Jiide  the  Obscure,  by  Thomas 
Hardy,  39,  216-217,  221 

Jungle  Books,  The,  by  Rudyard 
Kipling,  232 

Just-so  Stories,  by  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling, 232 

"  Kail  Yard  School,"  42 

Keats,  John,  58,  93,  95,   135,   158, 

165,  176,  185,  225 
Keene,  Charles,  37,  279 
Kelmscott  Press,  51,  248,  25  "5-262, 

264-266,  281-284 
Kelmscott    Press    Books,    258-259, 

263,  266 
Keynotes,  by  George  Egerton,   129, 

144 
Khartoum,  Taking  of,  237 
Khayyam,  Omar,  135 
Kidson,  Frank,  250 
Kim,  by  Rudyard  Kipling,  232 
King    of    the    Schnorrers,    The,    by 

Israel  Zangwill,  225 
King,  Jessie  M.,  283 
KipUng.   Rudyard,   34,   35,   39,   43. 

54,  126,  158,  187,  218,  225,  231- 

243,  292 
Kiss    of    Judas,    The,    by    Aubrey 

Beardsley,  loi 
Kitchener,  Lord,  237 
Krafft-Ebing,   102 
Kruger,  Paul,  238 

Labour  Party,  Independent,  26 

Lady  Windermere's  Fan,  by  Oscar 
Wilde,  77,  133 

Lamb,  Charles,  41,  107,  121,  123 

Lane,  John,  35,  45,  51,  93.  "9.  186, 
262 

Lang,  Andrew,  38 

Lassalle,  Ferdinand,  134 

Last  Ballad,  The,  by  John  David- 
son, 178 

Last  Feast  of  Fraima,  The,  by 
Alice  Milligan,  149 

Lavery,  John,  35,  270,  276-277 

Lawrence  and  BuUen,  45 


Lawrence,  Emmeline  Pethick,  250 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H..  38 

Lee,  Vernon,  144 

Leech,  John,  37,  279 

Le  Gallienne,  Richard,  31,  35,  38, 

41,  45,  46,  47,  91,  106,  108,  139, 

142-144,   157,    159,    160,   163-164, 

226-228 
Legros,  Alfonse,  290 
Leighton,  Sir  Frederick,  47 
L'Enfant  Prodigue,  94 
Leno,  Dan,  275,  289 
Lepage,  Bastien,  270 
Lethaby,  W.  R.,  251,  253 
Levetus,  Celia,  284 
Leyland,  Sir  James,  268 
Liberty,  196 
Liddon,  Canon,  38 
Light    That   Failed,   The,    by   Rud- 
yard Kipling,  232,  234 
Lindsay,  Sir  Coutts,  270 
Lippincott's  Monthly  Magazine,  75 
Little     Minister,    The,     by    J.     M. 

Barrie,  224 
Little  Novels  from  Italy,  by  Maurice 

Hewlett,  226 
Lisa     of     Lambeth,     by     Somerset 

Maugham,  43,  130,  224 
Locksley  Hall,  by  Lord   Tennyson, 

128 
Lombroso,  Cesare,  50 
London  People,  The  Life  and  Labour 

of  the,  by  Charles  Booth,  45 
London  Programme,  The,  by  Sidney 

Webb,  44 
London   Types,   by   W.    E.    Henley 

and  William  Nicholson,  274 
London       Visions,      by      Laurence 

Binyon,  109-110 
London      Voluntaries,     by    W.     E. 

Henley,  108-109,  143 
Longmans  &  Co.,  93 
Lord    Arthur    Saville's    Crime,    by 

Oscar  Wilde,  74 
Love   Songs   of   Connacht,    The,   by 

Douglas  Hyde,  149 
Lowry,  H.  D.,  144 
Lysistrata,  by  Aristophanes,  103 

Mabinogian,     The,    translated    by 

Lady  Charlotte  Guest,  151 
"  Mabon,"  151 
Macdougal,  William,  283 
Macgillivray,  Pittendrigh,  150,  283 
Macgregor,  W.  Y.,  270 
Mackie,  Charles  H.,  283 
"  Maffick,"  to,  39 
Mahdi,  the,  237 
Maitland,  270 
Machen,  Arthur,  226 
"  Maclaren,  Ian,"  42,  225 


INDEX 


299 


Macleod,   Fiona    (see   also  William 

Sharp),  35,  42,  48,  31,   147,  150, 

226 
Mademoiselle  de  Maupin,  by  Thdo- 

phile  Gautier,  59 
Madcmoisetle      Miss,      by      Henry 

Harland,  144 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  51,  132,  153, 

209-210 
Mceve,  by  Edward  Martyn,  149 
Mafeking  night,  54 
Major  Barbara,  by  Bernard  Shaw, 

200 
Mallarme,  Stephane,  56,  61,  78 
Mallock,  W.  H.,  38,  67 
Alammon    and    His    Message,    by 

John  Davidson,  179 
Man  of  Destiny,  The,  by  Bernard 

Shaw,  194 
Alan   and    Superman,    by   Bernard 

Shaw,  199 
Manet,  Eduard,  63,  99,  203,  268,  276 
Mann,  Harrington,  270 
Mann,  Tom,  26 
Manning,  Cardinal,  38 
Manuel,  J.  W.  T.,  36,  290 
Margaret  Ogilvy,  by  J.  M.  Barrie,  224 
Marillier,  H.  C,  97,  263 
Marius   the   Epicurean,  by   Walter 

Pater,  118,  140 
Marriott- Watson,  Rosamujid,  159 
Marpessa,  by  Stephen  Phillips,  158 
Martian,     The,      by     George      du 

Maurier,  39 
Martineau,  James,  38 
Martyn,  Edward,  149 
Mary   Glocester,   The,   by   Rudyard 

Kipling,  187 
Marx,  Karl,  134,  207 
Marxian  theory,  194 
Masefield,  John,  214 
Masks      or     Faces  P     by     William 

Archer,  207 
Masks,  The  Truth  about,  by  Oscar 

Wilde,  74 
Massacre  of  the  Innocents,  The,  by 

Maurice  Maeterlinck,   54 
Master    Builder,    The,    by    Henrik 

Ibsen,  209,  211 
Mathews,  Elkin,  35,  45,  51,  93 
Maude,  Aylmer,  250 
Maugham,  W.  Somerset,  43,  224,  225 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  220,  223,  235 
May,  Phil,  35,  36,  37,  50,  275,  280, 

287-292 
Melmoth,  Sebastian,  80 
Melville,  Arthur,  270 
Meredith,  George,  38,  121,  135,  144, 

157.  223 
Merrie       England,        by       Robert 

Blatchford,  44 


Merriman,  Henrj'  Seton,  225 

Merry  England,  167 

Meyncll,  Alice,  35,  45,  141,  144-145, 
158,  168 

Meynell,  Wilfrid,  168-169 

Midshipman  Easy,  by  Captain 
Marry  at,  118 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  by 
William  Shakespeare,  58 

Millais,  Sir  John  Everett,  281 

Millar,  H.  R.,  290 

Milligan,  Alice,  149 

Milton,  John,  165 

Molidre,  213 

Monet,  Claude,  139,  268 

Money-Coutts,  F.  B.,  159,  164 

Monticelli,  274 

Moore,  George,  27,  35,  39,  42,  47, 
48,  63,  64,  130,  135,  149,  209,  216- 
217,  223,  229-230,  267-269 

Moore,  T.  Sturge,  51,  159 

Moore,  Tom,  153 

More,  by  Max  Beerbohm,  120 

Morgan,  William  de,  251 

Morris,  Lewis,  38 

Morris,  May,  251 

Morris,  William,  26,  33,  38,  39,  51, 
100,  103,  134,  157,  196,  244-254, 
256-261,  263-266,  280,  282-284 

Morrison,  Arthur,  43,  130,  216,  223, 
225 

Morte  d' Arthur,  by  Malory,  illus- 
trated by  Aubrey  Beardsley,  93 

Mrs  Warren's  Profession,  by  Ber- 
nard Shaw,   194-196 

Muckley,  L.  Fairfax,  284 

Murdoch,  W.  G.  Blaikie,  33 

Murger,  Henri,  226 

Napoleon,  57,  183 

Nation,  The,  170 

National  Observer,  The,  22,  228-229 

Nature  of  Gothic,  The,  by  John 
Ruskin,  246-247 

Naulahka,  The,  by  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling and  Wolcot  Balestier,  232 

Neal,  Mary,  250 

Nesbit,  E.,  159 

Nettleship,  J.  T.,  47 

New,  E.  H.,  284 

New  Age,  The,  22,  24 

New  Ballads,  by  John  Davidson, 
178 

Newbolt,  Henry,  40,  158 

New  Century  Theatre,  209 

New  English  Art  Club,  269 

New  Grub  Street,  The,  by  George 
Gissing,  43 

New  Humour,  The,  227 

Newill,  Mary,  284 

Newly n  School,  270 


300 


INDEX 


2^ew  Poems,  by  Francis  Thompson, 

169 
New    Republic,    The,     by    W.     H. 

Mallock,  67 
New  Review,  The,  22 
Newman,  John  Henry,  38 
News  from    Nowhere,    by    William 

Morris,  39,  248 
Nicholson.    William,    34,    35,    268, 

270.  274-275 
Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  50,  61,  88,  128- 

129,  131-133,  182,  igo,  203,  234 
Nigger    of  the    Narcissus,    The,   by 

Joseph  Conrad,  225 
Nineteenth  Century,  The,  75 
No.    5    John    Street,    by    Richard 

Whiteing,  40,  43,  224 
"  Nonconformist    Conscience,"    24, 

216 
Nordau,  Max,  19-20,  30,  34,  195 
Nutt,  David,  93 

O'Connor,  T.  P.,  24 

Octopus,  The,  118 

Of  a  Neophyte,  by  Aubrey  Beards- 
ley,  lOI 

Olivier,  Sydney,  26 

"  On  Going  to  Church,"  by  Ber- 
nard Shaw,  50,  204 

Once  a  Week,  37 

Orpen,  William,  35,  270 

Osbourne,  Lloyd,  225 

Ospovat,  Henry,  290 

O'SuIlivan,  Vincgnt,  144,  222-223 

Outcast  of  the  Islands,  An,  by 
Joseph  Conrad,  225 

Pagan  Review,  The,  22 

Pageant,  The,  41,  160 

Pain,  Barry,  40,  225,  227 

Palace  Theatre,  76,  120 

Pall  Mall  Budget,  The,  118,  287 

Paolo   and    Francesca,    by   Stephen 

Phillips,  158 
Parade,  The,  36 
Park,  Carton  Moore,  290 
Parnassiens,  the,  59 
Parson    and    the    Painter,    The,   by 

Phil  May,  287 
Partridge,  Bernard,  280,  290 
Passion  of  Mary,    The,  by  Francis 

Thompson,  167 
Pater,   Walter,   26,    34,   38,   59,   61, 

74.  87,  135,  140 
Patience,  by  W.  S.  Gilbert,  67,  73 
Paton,  Sir  Noel,  150 
Payn,  James,  39 
Payne,  Henry,  284 
Peacock  Room,  the,  268 
Pears,  Charles,  290 
Pearson's  Weekly,  77-78 


Pelleas  and  MHisande,  by   Maurice 

Maeterlinck,  156 
Pen  Drawing  and  Pen  Draughtsmen, 

by  Joseph  Penncll,  285 
Pen,  Pencil  and  Poison,  by   Oscar 

Wilde,  74 
Pennell,    Joseph,    47,    50,    93,     98, 

285,  290 
Peploe,  J.  T..  35,  270 
Perfect  Wagnerite,  The,  by  Bernard 

Shaw,  195 
Perfervid,  by  John   Davidson,    177, 

181 
Peter     Jbbetson,     by      George      du 

Maurier,  39 
Petronius,  107 
Phantom  'Rickshaw,   The,  by   Rud- 

yard  Kipling,  232 
Pharais,  by  Fiona  Macleod,  42,  150 
Philanderer,  The,  by  Bernard  Shaw, 

194 
Phillips,  Stephen,  51,  158,  164 
Phrases    and    Philosophies   for     the 
Use    of    the     Young,     by     Oscar 
Wilde,   112 
Pick-me-up,   36,  37,   118,  287,   289- 

291 
Picture   of  Dorian    Gray,    The,    by 
Oscar  W^ilde,   21-22,    27,    59,    62, 
63,  68,  75,  84,  88-89,  138,  228 
Pierrot  of  the  Minute,  The,  by  Ernest 

Dowson,  141 
Pillars      of     Society,      by      Henri  k 

Ibsen,  202 
Pinero,  Arthur  W.,  39,  40,  78,  207, 

209,  212-213 
Pissarro,  139 
Plain    Tales    from     the     Hills,    by 

Rudyard  Kipling,  231 
Platonic  dialogue,  202 
Playhouse    Impressions,    by    A.    B. 

Walkley,  206 
Plays  Pleasant  and   Unpleasant,  by 

Bernard  Shaw,  44,  45,  195 
Podmore,  Frank,  26 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,   155 
Poems,  by  Francis  Thompson,  169 
Poems   by    the    Way,     by     William 

Morris,  258 
Poetry  of  the  Celtic  Races,   The,  by 

Ernest  Renan,  151 
Poets'   Corner,    The,  by   Max  Beer- 

bohm,  124 
Poets    of   the    Younger    Generation, 

by  William  Archer,  157-158 
Post-Impressionists,  269 
Poster,  The,  36 
Poster  Exliibition,  275 
Posters,  47 

Pour    la     Couronne,     by     Francois 
Coppee,  178 


INDEX 


.301 


Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  34,  58, 
244,  267,  272,  281,  284 

Prisoner  of  Zctida,  The,  by  An- 
thony Hope,  226 

Prose  Fancies,  by  Richard  le 
Gallienne,  139,  142 

Prose  Poems,  by  Oscar  Wilde,  88,  89 

Pryde,  James,  34,  35,  268,  270,  274- 

275 
Psychopathia   Sexualis,    by    Krafft- 

Ebing,   101-102 
Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,   by    Rudyard 

Kipling,   232 
Pugh,  Edwin,  225 
Punch,  36,  37,  67,  74,  287 
Purple  Land  that  England  Lost,  The, 

by  W.  H.  Hudson,  40-41 

Quarto,  The,  36 

Queen's     Romance,     A,     by     John 

Davidson,  178 
Quest,  The,  284 
Quest  of  the  Gilt  -  edged    Girl,   The, 

228 
Quest  of  the  Golden  Girl,    The,    by 

Richard  le  Gallienne,  41,  226,  228 
Question  of  Memory,  A ,  by  Michael 

Field,  209 
Quilp,  Jocelyn,  22 

Radford,  Dolly,  47,  159 

Radford,  Ernest,  159 

Random    Itinerary,    A,     by     John 

Davidson,  179 
Ransome,  Arthur,  72 
Rape  of  the  Lock,    The,  illustrated 

by  Beardsley,  98,  loi,  103 
Ray,  Catherine,  207 
Rcade,  Charles,  196 
Reclus,  filisee,  150 
Red  Deer,  by  Richard  Jefferies,  186 
Reeves  and  Turner,  265 
Renaissance,  The,  by  Walter  Pater, 

28,  59-60 
Renaissance,     The    History     of    the 

Italian,      by      John      Addington 

Symonds,  39 
Renaissance    of   the    Nineties,     The, 

by  W.  G.  Blaikie  Murdoch,  33 
Renan,  Ernest,  147,  151-152,  154 
Renoir,  99 

Renunciations,    by   Frederick   Wed- 
more,  39 
Review  of  Reviews,  The,  24 
Reynard  the  Fox,  281 
Rhodes,  Cecil,  54,  238-239 
Rhymers,  Club,  the,  115,  186 
Rhys,  Ernest,  42,  48 
Richard  Yea  and  Nay,  by  Maurice 

Hewlett,  226 
Richards,  Grant,  45 


Ricketts,  Charles,  34,  35,  37,  74, 
256,  260-262,  270,  273-274,  276, 
280,  282 

Ridge,  Pett,  40,  225,  227 

Rimbaud,  Arthur,  61,  63 

Roberts,  Morley,  225 

Robertson,  Forbes,  178 

Robins,  Elizabeth,  224 

Robinson,  Charles,  283 

Rodin,  Auguste,  271 

Rodney  Stone,  hy  A.  Conan  Doyle,  226 

Romance  and  Reality,  by  Hol- 
brook  Jackson,  290 

Romantic  Farce,  A,  ij8 

Romantic  movement,  the,  57 

Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  100 

Roots  of  the  Mountains,  The,  by 
William  Morris,  39,  257 

Rops,  Felicien,   103 

Rose  Leaf,  The,  36 

Rosmersholm,  by  Henrik  Ibsen. 
194,  209 

Ross,  Robert,  72,  80-81,  96 

Rossetti,  Christina,   38 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  58,  128, 
135.  157.  160,  162,  281 

Rothenstein,  William,  35,  47,  50, 
270,  276-278,  296 

Rousseau,  Jean-Jacques,  201 

Roussel,  270 

Royal  Academy,  269 

Royal  Scottish  Academy,  269 

Runciman,  John  F.,  51 

Runnable  Stag,  A,  by  John  David- 
son,  185-186 

Ruskin,  John,  34,  38,  135,  196,  203, 
244-245,  246,  267 

Russell  ("  A.  E.  "),  George,  42,  149 

Ruy  Bias,  by  Victor  Hugo,  178 

St  James's  Theatre,  76 
Salisbury,  Marquis  of,  238 
Salomd,  by  Oscar  Wilde,  84-85,  90 
Salome,  Beardsley's  illustrations  to, 

103 
Sambourne,  Linley,  280 
Samhain,  150 
Sanity    of    Art,    The,    by    Bernard 

Shaw,  195 
Santayana,  George,   159 
Sardou,  76 

Sargeant,  John  S.,  270 
Saturday  Review,  The,  120,  195,  205 
Savoy,  The,   17,  34,  35,   36,  45-46, 

48-49,  91,  118,  129,  204,  221 
Scaramouch     in    Naxos,    by    John 

Davidson,   178,   181 
School  for    Saints,    The,    by    John 

Oliver  Hobbes,  224 
Schopenhauer,  203 
Schreiner,  Olive,  224 


302 


INDEX 


Scots  Observer,  The,  267 

Scott,  Bailey,  251 

Scott,  Clement,  208 

Scott  Library,  52 

Scott,  Sir  Walter.  58 

Scribe,  76 

Seaman,  Owen,  40,  159-160 

Second    Mrs    Tanqueray,    The,    by 

Arthur  W.  Pinero,  40,  209,213-214 
Secret  Rose,  The,  by  W.  B.  Yeats, 

155-156 
Secular  Society,  the,  174 
Sentences  and  Paragraphs,  by  John 

Davidson,   129,   179 
Sentimental  Journey,    by    Laurence 

Sterne,  226 
Sentimental     Tommy,     by     J.      M. 

Barrie,  224 
Setoun,  Gabriel,  150 
Seven      Seas,     The,     by     Rudyard 

Kipling,  232,  242-243 
Shakespeare,  William,  165,  212,  272 
Shannon,    Charles  H.,  35,   50,  270, 

273-274,  282 
Shannon,  J.  J.,  35 
Sharp,  Cecil,  250 
Sharp,  William,  22,  30,  42 
Shavianism,    the    quintessence    of, 

198-201 
Shaw,  George  Bernard,  26,  34,  35, 

44,  45,  50,  78,  112,  120,  131,   134, 

146,  193-204,  234 
Shaw,  Norman,  251 
Shelley,    P.   B.,   58,    158,    165,    169, 

174-175,  185 
Shelley,  by  Francis  Thompson,    168 
Shepherd's     Calendar,       The,     illus- 
trated by  Walter  Crane,  282 
Sherard,  Robert  H.,  72,  79 
Sherlock  Holmes,  by  Arthur  Conan 

Doyle,  226 
Shropshire     Lad,     A,     by     A.      E. 

Housman,  45 
Sickert,  Walter,  26,  47,  50,  270,  290 
Silverpoints,  by  John  Gray,  262 
Sime,  S.    H.,  36,  37,  270,  280,  290, 

291-292 
Simpson,  Joseph,  290 
Sinner's    Comedy,    The,     by     John 

Oliver  Hobbs,  224 
Sister    Songs,    by    Francis    Thomp- 
son,  168 
Sketch,  The,  118,  287 
Sleigh,  Bernard,  284 
Smith  :    a    Tragic    Farce,    by    John 

Davidson,  178 
Smithers,  Leonard,  35,  45 
Social  Democratic  Federation,  26 
Socialism,  247-248 
Socialism    in    England,    by    Sidney 

Webb,  44 


Socialist  Movement,  44 
Socialist  Party,  the  British,  26 
Soldiers    Three,    by    Rudyard    Kip- 
ling, 231 
Some    Emotions   and    a    Moral,    by 

John  Oliver  Hobbes,  144 
Soul  of  Man,  The,  by  Oscar  Wilde, 

27,  88,  89,  134 
South  African  War,  53 
Speaker,  The,  178,  267 
Spence,  R.,  290 
Spencer,  Herbert,  38,  203 
Spenser,  Edmund,  251 
Sphinx,   The,  by   Oscar  Wilde,    74, 

82-83.  260,  263 
Sphinx    without  a    Secret,    The,    by 

Oscar  Wilde,  74 
Spirit  Lamp,  The,  22 
Spurgeon,  Charles,  38 
Stage  Society,  194,  209,  214 
Stalky  &  Co.,  by  Rudyard  Kipling, 

232 
Star,  The,  24,  193 
Stead,  W.  T.,  24 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  41 
Steer,  Wilson,  35,  47.  270 
Steevens.  G.  W..  40 
Stephen,  Leslie,  38 
Stephens,  Riccardo,   150 
Stevenson.   Robert    Louis.   38.    135, 

225,  227 
Stickit    Minister,     The,    by    S.     R. 

Crockett,  224 
Stirner,  Max,  132 
Stones    of    Venice,    The,    by     John 

Ruskin.  246 
Story  of  an  African  Farm,  The,  by 

Ralph  Iron  (Olive  Schreiner).  224 
Story    of     the     Gadsbys,     The,     by 

Rudyard  KipUng.   232 
Story   of    the   Glittering  Plain,    The, 

by  William  Morris.  39.  258.  259 
Story  of  the    Sundering  Flood,  The, 

by  William  Morris,  39 
Strang,  William,  290 
Street,  G.  S.,  41,  46,  48,  68-69,  91, 

112,  144 
Strike      at     Arlingford,      The,      by 

George  Moore,  209 
Strindberg.  August,  210.  212 
Studio,  The,  36,  93 
Study  in    Temptations,  A,  by  John 

Oliver  Hobbs.  224 
Sudermann,   Hermann.   209-210 
Sullivan.  E.  J..  47,  280.  290 
Superman,  190 
Swinburne,    Algernon     Charles,    38, 

58,  74,  157,  160,  162 
Sydney  Bulletin,  The,  287 
Symboli.*i   Movement  in     Literature, 

by  Arthur  Symons,  56 


INDEX 


303 


Symbolists,  the,  59,  244 

Symonds,  John  Addington,  39,  262 

Symons,  Arthur,   35,  36,  42,  47,  48, 

55-56,   70,   81,  85,  91,  95,    96-97. 

106,   112-114,  130,    134,   142,  159, 

161-162 
Synge,  J.  M.,  42,  87 

Tables  of  the   Law,  The.  by  W.   B. 
Yeats,  156 

Tabley,  Lord  de,  262 

Tales  of  Mean   Streets,   by   Arthur 
Morrison,  43,  130,  216 

Tales   of   Unrest,    by   Joseph   Con- 
rad, 225 

Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,  31 

Temple  Classics,  52 

Ten    O'clock.        by       J.       McNeill 
Whistler,  40,  123 

Tennyson,    Alfred,    Lord,    37,     100, 
128,  157,  220,  281 

Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,  by  Thomas 
Hardy,  39,  40 

Testament  of  John   Davidson,    The, 
by  John  Davidson,  179-181 

Testament  of  a    Vivisector,  The.   by 
John  Davidson,  179 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  217 

The    Testament   of   a  Man    Forbid. 
by  John  Davidson,  179,  189 

The  Testament  of  an  Empire  Builder, 
by  John  Davidson,  179 

Theatrocrat,    The.    by   John   David- 
son,  179 

Theosophy,  149 

Theosophical  movement,    132 

Thomas,  Inigo,  284 

Thompson,  Francis,  45,  51,  91,  131, 
158,  166-176 

Thompson,  The  Life  of  Francis,  by 
Everard  Meynell,   171 

Three  Plays  for  Puritans,  by  Ber- 
nard Shaw,   195 

Thus       Spake       Zarathustra,      by 
Friedrich  Nietzsche,   129 

Time    Machine,     The.    by    H.     G. 
Wells,  225 

Times.  The,  34 

To-Day,  36,  47 

Todhunter,  John,  209 

Tolstoy,  Leo,  128,  203,  212,  250 

To-morrow,  36,  120 

"  Tomlinson,"    by    Rudyard    Kip- 
ling   292 

Toulouse-Lautrec,  274 
Towards     Democracy,    by    Edward 
Carpenter,  44 

Town  planning,  254 

Townsend,  F.  H.,  290 
Trades  Unionism,  The  History  of.  by 
Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb,  44 


Traill,  H.  D.,  21,  39,  227 
Tree,  Herbert  Beerbohm,  76,  210, 
211 

Trench,  Herbert,  159 

Trilby,  by  George  du  Maurier,  39, 226 

Triumph    of    Mammon.     The.     by 

John  Davidson,  179 
Tupper,  Martin,  38 
Turgenev,  128,  132 
Twisting    of     the    Rope,     The,     by 

Douglas  Hyde,  149 
Two    Essays    on   the    Remnant,    by 

John  Eglington,  149 
Tyndall,  John,  38 

Under  the  Deodars,  by  Rudyard 
Kipling,  232 

Under  the  Hill,  by  Aubrey  Beards- 
ley,  50,  59,  63,  101-102,  114-115, 
138, 228 

Unhistorical  Pastoral,  An,  by  John 
Davidson,  178 

Unicorn  Press,  45 

Unicorn,  The,  118 

Unwin,  Fisher,  45 

Upward,  Allen,  40 

Vachell,  H.  a.,  40 

Vale  Press,  51,  255,  261-263,  281 

Vampire,  The,  by  Rudvard  Kipling, 

235 

Vanity,  118 
Vanity  Fair,  217 
Vaughan,  Henry,  166 
Vedrenne-Barker  repertoire  season, 

195.  214-215 
Vera :    or   the   Nihilists,   by   Oscar 

Wilde,  75 
Verdigris,  Baron,  by  Jocelyn  Quilp, 

21 
Verhaeren,  Emil,  50 
Verlaine,  Paul,  50,  58,  61,  63,  135, 

274 

Victor  Hugo,  57,  58 

Victoria,  Queen,  237 

Vignettes,  by  Hubert  Crackan- 
thorpe,   142 

Vistas,  by  William  Sharp,   30 

Vizetelly,  Ernest,  42 

Voltaire,  201 

Voysey,  C.  F.  A.,  251 

Voysey  Inheritance,  The,  bjj^  Gran- 
ville Barker,  214 

Wagner,  Richard,   198,  203 
Wagnerians,      The,       by      Aubrey 

Beardsley,  loi 
Walker,  Emery,  251,  256-257,  266 
Walkley,  A.  B.,  35,  206-207 
Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,  38 
Wallas,  Graham,  26 


304 


INDEX 


Wanderings  of  Oisin,  The,  by  W.  B. 

Yeats,  148 
War  of  the  Worlds,  The,  by  H.  G. 

Wells,  225 
Ward,  Mrs  Humphry,  26,  224 
Washer  of  the  Ford,  The,  by  "  Fiona 

Maclcod,"  150 
Water  of  the   Wondrous  Isles,    The, 

by  William  Morris,  39 
Watson,    William,    34,    40,    46,    47, 

158,  163 
Watteau,  94,  100,  274 
Watts,    George   Frederick,    33,    99, 

2G8,  277 
Watts-Dunton,  Theodore,   30 
Waugh,  Arthur,  47,  218-220 
Webb,  Beatrice,  44 
Webb,  Sydney,  26,  44,  200 
Webb,  Stephen,  251 
Wedmore,  Frederick,  38,  39,  50,  224 
Wee    Willie    Winkie,    by    Rudyard 

Kipling,  232 
Well  at  'the   World's  End,    The,  by 

William  Morris,  39 
Wells,   H.   G.,   27,  34,   35,   44.  224, 

225,  228-229,  274 
Welsh  Literary  Movement,  42 
Wessex  Poems,  by  Thomas  Hard^',  39 
Weyman,  Stanley  J.,  40,  226 
What  is  Art  ?  by  Leo  Tolstoy,  250 
Wheeler  &-  Co.,  A.  PL,  231 
Wheels  of  Chance,   The,  by   H.   G. 

Wells,  224 
When  the  Sleeper  Wakes,  by  H.  G. 

Wells,  225 
■Whibley,  Charles,  41 
Whistler,  James  McNeill,  34,  40,  47, 

74,  85,  98,  107,  III,  123,  141,  143, 

220,  245,  270,  277,  287 
Whistler,  The  Life  of  James  McNeill, 

by  E.  R.  and  J.  Pennell,  98 
White  Company,  The,  by  A.  Conan 

Doyle,  226 
Whiteing,  Richard,  40,  43,  44    224 
Whitman,  Walt,  85 
Whitten,  Wilfred,  169 
Whittingham,  Charles,  255 
Widowers'      Houses,     by      Bernard 

Shaw,  44,  194-196 
Wilde.  Oscar,  21,  22,  25,  27-28,  34, 

45,  53-54.  58.    63,  66-68,  70,  72- 

90,  91,  98,  120-103,  105,   107-108, 

111-112,   114,    131-132,   134,   136- 

137,   138-139.   142.    143.   144-145. 

146,  195,  205-206,  210,  212,  228, 

244,  260,  263 
Wilde,     Oscar,     The    Story    of    an 

Unhappy   Friendship,  by   R.    H. 

Sherard,  72 


Wilson,  Edgar,  36,  283 

Wilson.  Henry,  251 

Wilson,  Patten,  290 

Window   in    Thrums,  A,    by   J.    M. 

Barrie,  224 
Wolseley,  Viscount,  237 
Woman  and  Her  Son,  A,   by  John 

Davidson,  189 
Woman    Who   Did,   The,    by  Grant 

Allen,  40,  131,  216 
Woman    Covered  with  Jewels,    The, 

by  Oscar  Wilde,  76 
Woman  of  No   Importance,    A,    by 

Oscar  Wilde,  21,  76,  209,  212 
Woman's  World,  The,  74 
Women's      Tragedies,      by     George 

Fleming,  144 
Wonderful  Mission  of  Earl  Lavender, 

The,  by  John  Davidson,  179,  181 
Wonderful     Visit,    The,    by    H.    G. 

Wells,  224 
Wood   Beyond    the    World,   The,    by 

William  Morris,   39 
Woods,  Margaret  L.,  159 
Worde,  Wenkyn  de,  260-261 
Wordsworth,  William,  58,  158,  174 
World,  The,  193 
Wratislaw,  Theodore,  48,  159 
Wreckage.     By     Hubert     Crackan- 

thropc,  144 
Wrecker,      The,      by       Lloyd      Os- 

bourne  and  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son, 225 

Yeats,  Jack  B.,  283 

Yeats,  R.H.A..  J.  B.,  152 

Yeats,  William  Butler,  35,  42,    48. 

51,  56,  71,  141,  149,  150-156,  158, 

163-164,  283 
Yellow  Aster,  The,  by  Iota,  47,  139 
Yellow  Book,  The,  17,  23,  25,  34,  40, 

41,  45-46,  49,  52.  91.  93.  98.  118. 

139,  178,  186,  219,  228 
"  Yellow,  The  Boom  in,"  46-47 
"  Yellow  Nineties,"  the,  34 
"  Yellow  Press,"  the,  23,  52 
Yet    Again,    by     Max     Beerbohm, 

120, 123 
You   Never   Can  Tell,   by   Bernard 

Shaw,  194 

Zangwill,  Israel,  35,  40,  211,  225, 
227 

Zola,  Emile,  27,  42,  128,  130,  2or, 
203,  216 

Zuleika  Dobson.  By  Max  Beer- 
bohm, 120,  123 


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